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BALDWIN 



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SELECT ENGLISH CLASSICS 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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Select lEnoIisb Claeaice 



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THE 



BOOK OF ELEGIES 



EDITED Wirn NOTES 



BY 



JAMES BALDWIN, Ph.D. 

Author of "Six Centuries of English Poetry," "The Famous 
Allegories," "The I!ook Lover," etc. 







SILVER, BURDETT & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 
New York BOSTON Chicago 

1S93 



H\ 






Copyright, 1893, 
By silver, BURDETT & COMPANY. 



J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 



PUBLISHERS' NOTE. 



This is the third vohime of a series of Select English 
Classics which the pubhshers have in course of preparation. 
The series will include an extensive variety of selections 
chosen from the different departments of English literature, 
and arranged and annotated for the use of classes in schools. 
It will embrace, among other things, representative specimens 
from all the best English writers, whether of poetry or of 
prose ; selections from English dramatic literature, especially 
of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ; choice extracts 
from the writings of the great essayists ; selections from 
famous English allegories ; a volume of elegies and elegiacal 
poetry ; studies of English prose fiction, with illustrative speci- 
mens, etc. Each volume will contain copious notes, critical, 
explanatory, and biographical, besides the necessary vocabu- 
laries, glossaries, and indexes ; and the series when complete 
will present a varied and comprehensive view of much that 
is best in English literature. For supplementary reading, as 
well as for systematic class instruction, the books will possess 
many peculiarly valuable as well as novel features ; while their 
attractive appearance, combined with the sterling quality of 
their contents, will commend them for general reading and 
make them desirable acquisitions for every library. 

3 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Fore Word 6 

The Song of Thyrsis touching the Sorrow of Daphnis . 7 

Prose Version .......... 9 

Notes 13 

The Lament for Adonis 19 

Prose Version. Rev. J. Banks 21 

Metrical Version. Elizabeth Barrctc Broivning ... 24 

Notes 29 

The Lament for Bion 37 

Prose Version. Andrew Lang ....... 39 

Notes 44 

'^" On the Death of Sir Philip Sidney 49 

Astrophel. Edmund Spenser . . . . . . • 5^ 

A Pastorall Aeglogue. L. B 59 

Notes .64 

Dirge for Imogen. William Shakespeare 73 

Dirge in C'ynibeline. William Collins ..... 76 

Lycidas. John Millon 77 

Notes 85 

Elegy written in a Country Churchyard. Thomas Gray . 95 

Notes 104 

4 



CONTENTS. 



Adonais. Percy Bysshej Shelley 
Notes .... 



In Memokiam. Alfred Tennyson 
Notes . . ' . 



Ben Jonson 



Elegiacal Poems .... 
Epitaph. Robert Wilde . 
Epitaph. Ano7i. 

Epitaph on the Countess of Pembrok 
Epitaph on Elizabeth L. H. Ben Jonson 
A Sea Dirge. William Shakespeare 
A Land Dirge. John Webster 
Soldiers' Dirge. William Collins 
Rose i\ylmer. Walter Savage Landor 
A Pagan Epitaph. Anon. 
Bereavement. William W^ordsworth 
Epitaph on Mrs. Margaret Paston. JoJin Dryden 
Epitaph on the Excellent Countess of Huntingdon. 

Falkland ........ 

On the Religious Memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson. 

Milton 

Mary. Charles Wolfe 

Hester. Charles Lamb ...... 

The Shepherd's Elegy. William Broivne 

Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson. Robert Burns 

The Minstrel's Roundelay. Thomas Chatter ton 

Thanatopsis. William Cullen Bryant 

Friends departed. Henry Vaughan 

Notes 



Lord 



John 



FORE WORD. 



The Idyls of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus have served as 
models for no inconsiderable portion of our modern pastoral and 
elegiac poetry. They have been imitated by Spenser, improved 
upon by Milton, parodied by Pope and Gay, copied after by Shelley, 
and loved and admired by all the poets. By the three specimens 
presented in this book most of the elegies in our own language 
have been either directly or remotely suggested, or in some way 
modified. No apology, therefore, would seem necessary for the 
admission of these translations from the Greek into a volume of 
select English classics. No Book of Elegies could be complete 
without them. 



THE SONG OF THYRSIS 



TOUCHING 



THE SORROW OF DAPHNIS 

FROM THE FIRST IDYL OF THEOCRITUS 

Written in Gkeek about 270 b.c. 



A71 English Prose Version 



The shepherd Thy r sis, famed for his skill in song, sal one day in the 
shade of a pine, close by a clear, cool spring that gushed up out of the earth. 
A goatherd lounged at his ease on the grass and played siveet tunes upon his 
pipe. " Ah, friend,''' said Thyrsis, " thou dost in truth play well tipoti that 
reed: next to Pan thou shouldst have the prize. If he take the horned 
he-goat, then the she-goat shall be thine ; but if he choose the she-goat for his 
meed, then the year-old kid must fall to thee.''' J Veil pleased was the 
goatherd with this high praise, and he paid it back in kind. " Thy song, 
good Thyrsis,''' said he, " is far more sweet than that of the stream as it falls 
from the edge of the rock. If the A/uses for their meed bear off the young 
e%ve, thou shall have the lamb for thy gift ; but if it please them best to take 
the latnb, then thou shall take the eiue as thine own.'''' " Come., sit thou here 
and pipe me a song,''' said Thyrsis, " and I will 7vatch thy /locks." " -^'^y" 
quoth the goatherd, *' it is not right good for jis to pipe at mid-day. IFe fear 
Pan. But, come with me to the shade of yon elm, and do thou sing to me 
the song of Daphnis and his grief If thou wilt but sing as thou didst one 
day, I will let thee milk — ay, three times — a goat that hath twins, and 
whose milk doth fill two pails. A deep bowl of ivy-wood, too, will I give 
thee, rubbed 7vith sivcet bees-wax, — a two-eared bo7vl, carved with great 
skill, for -ivhich I gave a goat and a large cheese-cake of 7ohite milk, and 
whicJi has lud yet touched my lips." 

TJius urged, JViyrsis sang of the sorrow of Daphnis. 



E\}t cSong of E^mm 



TOUCHING 



THE SORROW OF DAPHNIS. 



5>©<C 



1 Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the sJiepherd'' s lay ! 

^Thyrsis I am, and this is the song I sing on Etna's 
slopes. — ^ Where were ye, Nymphs, when Daphnis 
pined and died ? Were ye not then in the far fair dells 
where ^Peneus flows, or in the vales where Pindus rears 
his head ? For ye staid not, I ween, by the broad 
stream ^Anapus, nor on the high top of Etna's mount, 
nor yet on the weird Acis' banks. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay I 

^For him the wild beasts, for him the wolves did cry. 

For him, when dead, the king of beasts in the dark 

woods wept. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay I 
At his feet the kine grieved sore, ay, herds of bulls, 
and all the young cows and sad-faced calves did mourn. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the sJiepJierds lay I 
First " Hermes from the hill did come, and thus to 
Daphnis spake : '' Who is it that gives thee pain, my 
child } For the love of whom dost thou pine and die ? " 

9 



10 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay ! 

Then came those who tend the kine, the sheejo, and 
the goats when in the fields they feed, and ^ all asked 
him what harm had caused him so much pain. Came, 
too, ^ Priapus, and said : '' Poor Daphnis, why dost thou 
grieve, while for thee the fair maid fleets through all the 
glades and past all streams in search of thee ? " 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherds lay ! 

" Ah ! thou art a swain too slack in love, and now thou 
lo art past help ! They say thou dost mind the cows, but 
now thou art most fit to keep the goats ! For he that 
keeps the goats, when he marks the grown-up kids at 
their play, looks on with well-pleased eyes, and fain 
would be as they. And thou, when thou dost hear the 
young girls and see them smile, dost gaze with glad 
eyes, and yet dost not join them in the dance." 

Begin, ye Mnses dear, begin the shepherd's lay ! 
Yet to these Daphnis said not one word ; but his grief 
he fed, and his own sad love he bare, and bare it still 
20 to the end that stern fate at the last did bring. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begiii the shepherd's lay I 
Ay, and there came, too, sweet ^^ Cypris, queen of 
love, and a smile was on her face though wrath was in 
her heart; and to the sad shepherd thus she spake: 
" Daphnis, I did hear thy boast that thou wouldst ^^ bend 
Love to a fall ! Hast not thou thine own self been 
bent, yea, thrown by Love } " 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay I 
And Daphnis these words spake to her : " Harsh 
30 Cypris, Cypris to be feared, Cypris the bane of men. 



THE SORROW OF DA FUNIS. 11 

now thou dost know that my last sun too soon will set ; 
yet Daphnis in realm of shades shall prove great grief 
to Love. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay ! 

'' As to Cypris, is it not said that he who kept the 
herds — ^^ But get thee to Mount Ida. Haste thee to 
Anchises. There oak trees grow ; here the marsh plants 
thrive, and here the sweet hum of the bees is heard at 
the hives ! 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherds lay I lo 

" Thy loved ^^ Adonis, too, is still in the bloom of 
youth, for he tends the sheep and kills the hares, and 
hunts wild beasts in the deep, dark wood. Nay, go and 
take thy stand once more in the ^^ fight with Diomed, 
and say, * I have struck down Daphnis, him who kept 
the herds, come now and try thy strength with me ! ' 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherds lay I 
" Ye wolves, ye bears, and ye wild beasts that lurk in 
dens and in the caves of the hills, fare ye well ! By you 
no more shall Daphnis be seen in the wood, no more in 20 
the groves where grow the oaks, no more in the dells 
between the hills. Fare thee well, ^^ Arethusa ; and ye 
brooks, good night, that pour down i*^Thymbris your 
clear, cool streams. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay ! 

"Here am I — Daphnis — who tend in these fields 
my herd of young kine — Daphnis, who leads the bulls 
to the cool stream that they may drink. 

Begin, ye Muses dear, begin the shepherd's lay ! 

" O Pan, Pan, if thou art on the high hills of ^' Lycaeus, 30 



12 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

or if thou dost range o'er great ^^ Maenalus, haste thou 
to the Sicilian isle ; or leave the far-off cape of ^-^ Helice, 
and the tall cairn that marks the tomb of ^^ Lycaon's 
son — a work which seems fair, yea, most fair, in the 
eyes of the blessed. 

Noiv cease, ye Muses dear, now cease the s/iefhenfs 

lay I 
'* Come, O my prince, and take this fair pipe, sweet 
to taste and smell from the wax-stopped joints ; take it, 
[o it will fit thy lips well ! For, in truth, I am at last 
^^ dragged by Love to the dark land of Hades. 

Nozv cease, ye Muses dear, now cease the shepherds 
lay ! 

22 '< Now violets bear, ye sharp briars ; and may ye 
thorns bear, violets. And may narcissus bloom on the 
juniper tree! May all things be changed in kind, and 
let the pine bear pears — for Daphnis dies ! And may 
the stag hunt the hounds, and the owls from the hills 
sing songs more sweet than those of the nightingales." 

>o Now cease, ye Muses dear, nozv cease the shepherd's 
lay ! 
Thus Daphnis spake, and thus he made an end : and 
fain would Aphrodite raise him up. But all the threads 
of the ^ Fates, I ween, were now sjoun out. And Daph- 
nis went down the ^^ stream. The swift wave washed far 
from the land the man the Muses loved, the man to the 
Nymphs most dear. 

Now cease, ye Muses dear, nozv cease the shepherd's 
lay ! 
50 And now, give thou me the she-goat and the bowl, 



THE SORROW OF DAPHNIS. 13 

that I may milk her and pour it out, a thank-gift to the 
Muses. O hail, hail, ye Muses dear, and oft-times hail ! 
And I to you a song more sweet than this will sing -'^ in 
the days to come ! 



NOTES. 

The Author. 

"Theocritus, the BucoHc poet, was a Syracusau by extraction, and the 
son of Simichidas, as he says himself, ' Simichidas, pray whither through 
the noon dost thou drag thy feet?' (A/j'/ vii.). Some say that this was 
an assumed name, for he seems to have been snub-nosed, and that his 
father was Praxagoras, and his mother Phihnna. He became the pupil of 
Philetas and Asclepiades, of whom he speaks in his seventh Idyl, and 
flourished about the time of Ptolemy Lagus. Pie gained much fame for 
his skill in bucolic poetry. According to some, his original name was 
Moschus, and Theocritus was a name later assumed." — A^otice tistially 
prefixed to his Idyls, translated by Andrezv Lang. 

Of the life of Theocritus, but little is known. He was born probably at 
Syracuse about the year 315 B.C., and received at least a portion of his 
education at Alexandria. His early poetic efforts were so successful that 
he was rewarded by the patronage of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in whose 
honor some of his Idyls were written. He afterwards returned to Syra- 
cuse, where he spent the latter part of his life, and where much of his best 
work in poetry was done. Of the date and manner of his death, there is 
no trustworthy record. He was the inventor of pastoral poetry. " He 
stands alone, with a crowd of imitators at a wide interval of merit." 

The Poem. 

The Song of Thyrsis is a part, and the chief motif, of the first Idyl 
of Theocritus, of which the following is a brief analysis: "The shepherd 
Thyrsis meets a goatherd in a shady place beside a spring, and at his 
invitation, sings the Lament for Daphnis. This ideal hero of Greek pas- 
toral song had won for his bride the fairest of the Nymphs. Confident in 
the strength of his passion, he boasted that Love could never subdue him 
to a new affection. Love avenged himself by making Daphnis desire a 
strange maiden, but to this temptation he never yielded. The song tells 
how the cattle and the wild things of the wood bewailed him; how 



14 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Hermes and Priapus gave him counsel in vain; and how with his last 
breath he retorted the taunts of the implacable Aphrodite. The scene is 
in Sicily." 

1. Begin, ye Muses dear. This form of invocation has been often 
imitated by the later poets. See Moschus's Lament for Bion (page 39) : — 

" Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge ! " 
Compare also with Virgil, Eclogue viii. : — 

" Begin with me, my pipe, Moenalian strains ! " 
And with Pope, Pastoral iii. : — 

" Resound, ye hills, resound my mournful strains." 

Also with Milton, I^ycidas, line 15 (see page 79). And with Spenser, 
Shepheards Calender, November : — 

" Morne now my Muse, now morne with heavy cheare." 

2. Thyrsis. The name is very common in pastoral poetry. See Virgil, 
Eclogue vii., " In alternate verses the two began to contend. These Cory- 
don, those Thyrsis, each in his turn recited." Also Milton, V Allegro : — 

" Hard by a cottage chimney smokes 
From betwixt two aged oaks, 
Where Corydon and Thyrsis, met, 
Are at their savoury dinner set." 

3. Where were ye, Nymphs ? Doubtless having reference to the 
nurturing care which the Nymphs had had for Daphnis. The line is imi- 
tated by Milton, Lya'das, line 50. Also by Pope in Pastoral ii. : — 

" Where stray y^, Nymphs, in what lawn or grove, 
While your Alexis pines in hopeless love ? " 

See Virgil, Eclogue x. : — 

" What groves, ye virgin Naiads, or what lawns detained you, 
While Gallus pined with ill-requited love ? " 

See also Shelley's A dona? s, ii. i, and Spenser's Astrophel, 128. 

Daphnis. The original Daphnis, whose grief is celebrated in this 
Idyl, was the son of Hermes and the friend of both Pan and Apollo. His 
mother was a Nymph, and he was placed while an infant in a laurel grove, 
whence his name (from Gr. daphne, a laurel tree). He was brought up 
by the Nymphs, and became a shepherd on the slopes of Mount Etna. 



rilE SORROW OF DAPHNIS. 15 

There he tended his sheep, was taught music by Pan, and invented bucoHc 
poetry with which to entertain Artemis while she was hunting. A Naiad, 
who fell in love with him, made him swear never to love any other maiden. 
He kept his promise for a time, but at length became hopelessly enam- 
oured of a princess. Thereupon the Naiad, according to some, punished 
him with blindness. Others say that she changed him to a stone : — 

" This is that modest shepherd, he 
That only dare salute, but ne'er could be 
Brought to kiss any, hold discourse, or sing, 
Whisper, or boldly ask." 

Fletcher, The Faithful Shepherdess. 

See Virgil, Eclogue v. : — 

"The shepherds wept Daphnis, cut off by cruel death." 

Longos, a Greek sophist (4th or 5th century A.D.), wrote a prose-pastoral 
love story entitled Daphnis and Chloe. John Gay (i 688-1 732) wrote a 
poem with the same title; and William Browne published a pastoral 
called Daphnis and lycidas in 1727. 

4. Peneus. A river in Thessaly flowing through the vale of Tempe, 
between the mountains Ossa and Olympus. — Pindus. A range of moun- 
tains in northern Greece. If the Nymphs were here, they were about four 
hundred miles from Daphnis, on Mount Etna. 

5. Anapus and Acis were rivers in Sicily, near the foot of Mount Etna. 
In his Seventh Idyl Theocritus again mentions the Anapus: — 

" Through Polypheme did such sweet nectar glance. 
That madie the shepherd of Anapus dance." 

Acis was a Sicilian shepherd, the son of Faunus, and beloved by the Nymph 
(jalatea. The monster Polypheme, jealous of him, crushed him under a 
huge rock, and his blood became the river Acis (now Fiume de Jaci), 
which flows from under a rock at the foot of Mount Etna. 

6. For him the wild beasts did cry. Imitated by Moschus in his 
Lament for Bion (see page 40). And by Virgil, Eclogue v. : — 

" Even the African lions mourned thy death." 
Also by Pope, Pastoral iii. : — 

" For her the feather'd choirs neglect their song." 
Also by Spenser, Shepheards Calender^ November: — 

" The beastes in forrest wayle as they were woode." 
Compare with A Pastor all ^glogue (line 76). 



16 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

7. Hermes. Daphnis was the son of Hermes, hence the latter addresses 
him as " my child." Hermes was especially worshipped by the shepherds, 
whose patron he was, and he is often mentioned in connection with Pan 
and the Muses. 

8. all asked what harm had caused him so much pain. Compare 
this passage with Milton's Lycidas, lines 91, 92; also with Pope's Pastoral 
iii. : — 

" Pan came and asked what magic caused my smart." 

Theocritus represents Hermes, the Shepherds, Pan, Priapus, and 
Cypris as bewailing the misfortunes of Daphnis. Moschus (see page 40) 
introduces Apollo, the Satyrs, the Priapi, the Panes, and Echo as mourn- 
ing for Bion; Milton (see page 82) speaks of Neptune, Camus, and St. 
Peter in connection with the sorrow for Lycidas; Shelley (see page 119) 
introduces Dreams, Desires, Adorations, Destinies, Phantasies, Sorrow, 
Sighs, and Pleasure among the mourners for Adonais. 

9. Priapus. A god of the gardens, of flocks, of bees, and of fruitful- 
ness. Pausanias says : " Priapus is honored elsewhere by those who keep 
sheep and goats or stocks of bees; but the Lampsakenes regard him more 
than any other of the gods, calHng him the son of Dionysos and Aphro- 
dite." See Virgil, Eclogue vii. : "A pail of milk and these cakes, Priapus, 
are enough for thee to expect. Thou art the keeper of a poor, ill-tended 
garden." 

10. Cypris. Hesiod {Theog. 188 seq.') says that when Aphrodite, the 
goddess of love, sprang into life from the foam of the sea, she first 
approached the island of Cythera, and then proceeding onward, finally 
landed upon Cyprus. Hence she is sometimes called Cypris, or the 
Cyprian, and sometimes Cytherea. 

11. bend love to a fall. The original Greek expression is a term 
used in descril)ing wrestling matches, and means to master, to overthrow. 

12. But get thee to Mount Ida. By a sudden breaking off and turn 
of expression — called aposiopesis — Daphnis here taunts Aphrodite by 
bringing to remembrance her intrigue with Anchises on Mount Ida. For 
an example of the similar use of this figure, see Exodus xxxii. 32; also 
Virgil, ALneid, i. 135: "Dare you, winds, without my sovereign leave to 
embroil heaven and earth, and raise such mountains? Whom I — But first 
it is right to assuage the tumultuous waves." 

13. Adonis. For a brief version of the story of Adonis, see page 29 
of this volume. Observe Daphnis's taunting manner. 

14. For a description of the fight with Diomed, see Homer's Iliad, v. 
336: "Now Tydeides (Diomed) had made onslaught with pitiless weapon 
on the Cyprian, knowing how she was a coward goddess, and none of those 



THE SORROW OF DAPHNIS. 17 

that have mastery in battle of the warriors, — no Athene she nor Enyo, 
waster of cities. . . . And over her Diomed of the loud war-cry shouted 
afar : ' Refrain thee, thou daughter of Zeus, from war and fighting. Is it 
not enough that thou beguilest feeble women? But if in battle thou 
wilt mingle, verily I deem that thou shalt shudder at the name of battle 
if thou hear it even from afar.' " 

15. Arethusa. The Nymph Arethusa, being pursued by the river- 
god Alpheus, was changed into the fountain of Arethusa in the island of 
Ortygia, near the Sicilian coast. She was sometimes reckoned as a Nymph 
of Sicily, and as the special patron of pastoral poetry. Virgil, Eclogue x. i , 
invokes her aid : " Grant unto me, O Arethusa, this last essay." See 
Milton, Lycidas, line 84; also Shelley's beautiful poem, Arethusa. 

16. Thymbris, a mountain in Sicily. 

17. Lycasus, a lofty mountain in Arcadia, the birthplace of Pan and 
one of his chief sanctuaries. 

18. Maenalus, a mountain in Arcadia, the favorite haunt of Pan. It 
was covered with pine-trees. See Virgil, Eclogue viii. : " Mcenalus always 
has a vocal grove and shaking pines; he ever hears the lover of shepherds, 
and Pan, the first who suffered not the reeds to be neglected." 

19. Helice was a city of Achaia, swallowed up by an earthquake in 
373 B.C. Reference is made here most probably to some other locaHty of 
the same name, perhaps in Arcadia, as indicated by the close connection 
of the thought with Lycaon. 

20. Lycaon, king of Arcadia. For his impiety he, with all his sons 
except Nyctimus, the youngest, was slain with lightning; or, according to 
other stories, they were changed to wolves (Gr. Itikos, a wolf). Among 
the pastoral poets tombs are often referred to as prominent landmarks. 

21. dragged by Love. See Pope's Ocfe on St. Cecilia's Day : — 

" Love, strong as death, the poet led 
To the pale nations of the dead." 

22. Imitated by Pope, Pastoral iii. : — 

" Let opening roses knotted oaks adorn, 
And liquid amber drop from every thorn." 

See Luke vi, 44. 

23. See note 34, on Lycidas, page 90. 

24. The stream of Acheron, which the shades of the dead must cross 
before entering Hades. 

25. in the days to come. See the closing lines in Adonis, "Thou 
must wail again next year." And in Lycidas, "To-morrow to fresh woods 
and pastures new." 



18 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" There can be no doubt that the bucolic vein was early and strongly 
developed among Sicilian shepherds. The use of the shepherd's pipe and 
of responsive song was early developed in the country, and from the oldest 
time in some peculiar relation to the shepherd life in the mountains of 
Arcadia — worshipping the same god, Pan, honoring the same traditions, 
and pursuing the same habits. It even appears to me that in the great 
days of Gelon and Hieron there was a considerable emigration from 
Arcadia to Sicily, for we know that their mercenary armies were recruited 
from Arcadia, and doubtless the veterans were better rewarded with upland 
pastures in rich Sicily than by returning to their harsh and wintry home. 
But the Arcadian music found itself already at home in a country where 
the legends of the shepherd Daphnis were older than Stesichorus, and had 
been raised by him into classical literature. According to various authori- 
ties, Daphnis was brought up in a grove of laurels, and being an accom- 
plished singer, and taught by Pan to play on the pipe, he became the 
companion of Artemis in her hunting, and delighted her with his music. 
His tragic end, which is connected with his love for a nymph and his faith- 
lessness, was variously told, and these versions were the favorite subject 
of pastoral lays, which were attached to the worship of Artemis through- 
out Sicily, and celebrated in musical contests at her feasts in Syracuse, 
where shepherds sang alternately in what was called Priapean verse. . . . 
The shepherds of Theocritus are not pure and innocent beings, living in 
a garden of Eden or an imaginary Arcadia, free from sin and care. They 
are men of like passion as we are, gross and mean enough for ordinary 
life. But though artiticially painted by a literary townsman, they are real 
shepherds, living in a real country, varying in culture and refinement, but 
all speaking human sentiments without philosophy and artifice. ... It 
were unjust to deny Theocritus the noble position he deserves among the 
great and matchless masters of Greek poetry, though to him the Muse 
came last, * as to one born out of due season.' " — Mahaffy. 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 

AN IDYL 

INTENDED TO BE SUNG AT THE SPRING FESTIVAL 
IN ALEXANDRIA IN HONOR OF ADONIS 

THE FIRST IDYL OF BION OF SMYRNA 
Written in Greek about 265 b.c. 



I. An English Prose Version by Rev. y. Banks 
II. An English Metrical Version by Elizabeth Barrett Browtiing 



The oldest of love stories : The Sun looked dozvn and smiled upon the 
Earth. And she beholding him in his beauty, put on her many-hued gar- 
ments and joyfully claimed him as her ozvn. Then the Loves danced at 
their betrothal, and the Father of all blessed their tinion. And infields and 
forests, in upland glades and lowland meadows, their ntiptial sojtg zvas 
sung ; and life and gladness, youth and beauty, sprang everyzvhere into 
being. But, as the Seasons passed, the unvjilling Sun was wooed by envious 
Darkness, his light zuas obscured by clouds, his glory ivas dimmed, his beauty 
was shrouded with shade. On the tvooded hill-tops he lingered and lan- 
guished, loath to leave his lovely bride. But at length the queen of the 
shadozv-land prevailed, and carried hi?n away to her gloomy abode. Earth 
lost her lovely lord and ivith him her matchless beauty. " IVoe, woe,^'' the 
groves lamented ; and the oak trees in the valley shuddered for grief The 
rivulets ceased their laughter, and the mountain brooks stood still. The 
leaves of the forest flushed red in their anguish, and in every field and 
wooded dell Earth zuailed piteously a wild dirge for her lover. Then, 
touched at the sight of the universal sorrozo, the All- father decreed that after 
six months had passed, the Sun should return to his bride, and, renewing 
his youth, should again gladden the Earth zvith his caresses. Six tnonths 
in every twelve he should smile upon her ; six months in every tzvelve he 
should abide in the land of shadozvs. 

The Sun is Adonis; the Earth is Verms, sometimes called Cytherea ; 
the queen of the shadozv-land is stern Persephone, the maiden of Hades. 
While hunting in the forest, Adonis is slain by a cruel beast — a fierce 
wild-boar. Persephone carries him azuay to the realms of death. 

Venus wails for Adonis ; the Loves join in the lament. 



E\}t Hamrnt for ^tionts. 



PROSE VERSION. 



D^a<c 



/ wail for ^Adonis ; b ecu Lt eons Adonis is dead. 

Dead is beauteous Adonis ; the Loves join in the 
wail. 2 Sleep no more, Venus, in pur23le vestments ; 
rise, wretched goddess, in thy robes of woe, and beat 
thy bosom, and say to all, *' Beauteous Adonis hath 
perished." 

/ zvail for Adonis ; the Loves Join in the zvail. 

Low lies beauteous Adonis on the mountains, having 
his white thigh smitten by a tusk, a white tusk, and he 
inflicts pain on Venus, as he breathes out his life lo 
faintly ; but adown his white skin trickles the black 
blood ; and his eyes are glazed 'neath the lids, and the 
rose flies from his lip ; and round about it dies also the 
kiss which Venus will never relinquish. To Venus, 
indeed, his kiss, even though he lives not, is pleasant, 
yet Adonis knew not that she kissed him as he died. 

/ zvail for Adonis ; the Loves wail in concert. 

A cruel, cruel wound hath Adonis in his thigh, but 
a greater wound doth ^Cytherea bear at her heart. 
Around that youth indeed faithful hounds whined, and 20 
* Oread Nymphs wept; but Aphrodite, having let fall 
her braided hair, wanders up and down the glades, sad, 



22 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

unkempt, unsandalled, and the brambles tear her as she 
goes, and cull her sacred blood : then wailing pierc- 
ingly, she is borne through long valleys, crying for her 
^Assyrian spouse, and calling on her youth. But 
around him dark blood was gushing, and his breasts 
were empurpled from his thighs, and the parts of the 
body white before, became now deep red. 

AlaSy alas f 07' Cy there a ; the Loves join in the wail. 
She hath lost her beauteous spouse, she hath lost with 

10 him her divine beauty. Fair beauty had Venus when 
Adonis was living; but with Adonis perished the fair 
form of Venus, alas, alas ! All mountains and the oaks 
say, *' Alas for Adonis ! " And ^rivers sorrow for the 
woes of Aphrodite, and springs on the mountains weep 
for her Adonis, and flowers redden from grief; whilst 
Cytherea sings mournfully along all woody mountain 
passes, and through cities. Alas, alas for Cytherea, 
beauteous Adonis hath perished ! And Echo cried in 
response, '' Beauteous Adonis hath perished ! " " Who 

20 would not have lamented the dire love of Venus } 
Alas ! alas ! when she saw, when she perceived the 
wound of Adonis, which none might stay, when she saw 
gory blood about his wan thigh, unfolding wide her 
arms, she sadly cried, " Stay, ill-fated Adonis ! Adonis, 
stay, that I may find thee for the last time, that I may 
enfold thee around, and mingle kisses with kisses. 
Rouse thee a little, Adonis, and again this last time kiss 
me; kiss me just so far as there is life in thy kiss, till 
from thy heart thy spirit shall have ebbed into my lips 

30 and soul, and I shall have drained thy sweet love-potion, 
and have drunk out thy love ; and I will treasure this 
kiss, even as Adonis himself, since thou, ill-fated one, 



THE LAM EN 7' FOR ADONIS. 23 

dost flee from me. Thou fliest afar, O Adonis, and 
comest unto ^ Acheron, and its gloomy, cruel king ; but 
wretched I live, and am a goddess, and cannot follow 
thee. Take, ^ Proserpine, my spouse : for thou art thy- 
self far more powerful than I, and the whole of what 
is beautiful falls to thy share ; yet I am all-hapless, 
and feel insatiate grief, and mourn for Adonis, since to 
my sorrow he is dead, and I am afraid of thee! Art 
thou dying, O thrice-regretted } Then ^^ my longing is 
fled as a dream ; and widowed is Cytherea, and idle are lo 
the Loves along my halls ; and with thee has my 
1^ charmed girdle been undone ; nay, why, rash one, 
didst thou hunt .-^ Beauteous as thou wert, ^^wast thou 
mad enough to contend with wild beasts.-^ " 

TJins lamented Venus ; the Loves joiji in tJie wail. 

Alas, alas, for Cytherea, beauteous Adonis has per- 
ished ! The ^^ Paphian goddess sheds as many tears as 
Adonis pours forth blood ; and these all on the ground ' 
become flowers : ^^ the blood begets a rose, and the tears 
the anemone. Lament no more, Venus, thy wooer in 20 
the glades : there is a goodly couch, there is a bed of 
leaves ready for Adonis ; this bed of thine, Cytherea, 
dead Adonis occupies ; and though a corpse, he is beau- 
tiful, — a beautiful corpse, as it were sleeping. 

Lay him down on the soft vestments in which he was 
wont to pass the night ; in which with thee along the 
night he would take his holy sleep on a couch all of 
gold ; yearn thou for Adonis, sad-visaged though he be 
now ; and ^^ lay him amid chaplets and flowers ; all with 
him, since he is dead, ay, ^^ all flowers have become 30 
withered ; but sprinkle him with myrtles, sprinkle him 
with unguents, with perfumes : perish all perfumes, 
thy perfume, Adonis, hath perished. Delicate Adonis 



24 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

reclines in purple vestments ; and about him weeping 
Loves set up the wail, having their ^"^ locks shorn for 
Adonis ; — and one was trampling on his arrows, another 
on his bow, and another was ^^ breaking his well- 
feathered quiver ; and one has loosed the sandal of 
Adonis, while another is carrying water in golden ewers, 
and a third is bathing his thighs ; and another behind 
him is fanning Adonis with his wings. 

The Loves join in the wail for Cytherea herself: 

10 Hymenasus has quenched every torch at the door-posts, 
and shredded the nuptial wreath ; and no more is 
^^ Hymen, no more Hymen the song that is sung, alas ! 
alas ! is chanted. Alas, alas for Adonis ! wail the Graces, 
far more than Hymenaeus, for the son of ^o^inyras, 
saying one with another, '' Beauteous Adonis hath per- 
ished ! " and far more piercingly speak they than thou, 
2^ Dione. The Muses, too, strike up the lament for 
Adonis, and invoke him by song, but he heeds them 
not ; not indeed that he is unwilling, but Proserpine 

20 does not release him. Cease, Cytherea, thy laments ; 
refrain this day from thy dirges. ^^Thou must wail again 
and weep again another year. 



W^t ILament for ^tionfe. 

METRICAL VERSION. 

/ moiniifor ^Adonis — Adonis is dead ; 

Fair Adonis is dead, and the Loves are lamenting. 
2 Sleep, Cypris, no more on thy purple-strewed bed ; 

Arise, wretch stoled in black, beat thy breast unre- 
lenting. 
And shriek to the worlds, " Fair Adonis is dead ! " 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 25 

/ inoiirnfor Adonis — t/ic Loves are lamenting. 
He lies on the hills in his beauty and death ; 
The white tusk of a boar has transpierced his white 
thigh. 
^ Cytherea grows mad at his thin, gasping breath, 
While the black blood drips down on the pale ivory. 
And his eyeballs lie quenched with the weight of his 
brows ; 
The rose fades from his lips, and upon them just parted 

The kiss dies the goddess consents not to lose. 
Though the kiss of the dead cannot make her light- 
hearted ; 
He knows not who kisses him dead in the dews. lo 



/ nioni'nfor Adonis — tJie Loves are lajnentijig. 

Deep, deep in the thigh is Adonis's wound ; 
But a deeper, is Cypris's bosom presenting. 

The youth lieth dead while his dogs howl around, 
And the "* nymphs weep aloud from the mists of the 
hill, 

And the poor Aphrodite, with tresses unbound. 
All dishevelled, unsandalled, shrieks mournful and shrill 

Through the dusk of the groves. The thorns, tearing 
her feet, 
Gather up the red flower of her blood which is holy. 

Each footstep she takes ; and the valleys repeat 
The sharp cry she utters, and draw it out slowly. 

She calls on her spouse, her ^ Assyrian, on him 
Her own youth, while the dark blood spreads over his 
body. 

The chest taking hue from the gash in the limb, 
And the bosom once ivory turning to ruddy. 



26 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Ah, ah, Cytherea — tJie loves are lamenting. 

She lost her fair spouse, and so lost her fair smile : 
When he lived she was fair, by the whole world's con- 
senting. 
Whose fairness is dead with him : woe worth the 
while ! 
All the mountains above, and the oaklands below, 
Murmur, ah, ah, Adonis ! the streams overflow 
Aphrodite's deep wail; ^river-fountains in pity 

Weep soft in the hills ; and the flowers as they blow 
Redden outward with sorrow, while all hear her go 
With the song of her sadness through mountain and 
city. 

Ah, ah, Cytherea ! Adonis is dead. 

Fair Adonis is dead — Echo answers Adonis ! 
^ Who weeps not for Cypris, when, bowing her head, 

She stares at the wound where it gapes and astonies } 
When — ah, ah — she saw how the blood ran away 

And empurpled the thigh, and with wild hands flung 
out. 
Said with sobs, "Stay, Adonis! unhappy one, stay. 

Let me feel thee once more, let me ring thee about 
With the clasp of my arms, and press kiss into kiss ! 

Wait a little, Adonis, and kiss me again. 
For the last time, beloved; and but so much of this 

That .the kiss may learn life from the warmth of the 
strain ! 
Till thy breath shall exude from thy soul to my mouth, 

To my heart, and, the love-charm I once more receiv- 

May drink thy love in it, and keep of a truth 
That one kiss in the place of Adonis the living. 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 27 

Thou fliest me, mournful one, fliest mc far, 

My Adonis, and seekest the ^ Acheron portal ; 
To Hell's cruel king goest down with a scar. 

While I weep and live on like a wretched immortal, 
And follow no step ! O ^ Persephone, take him, 

My husband ! thou'rt better and brighter than I, 
So all beauty flows down to thee : / cannot make him 

Look up at my grief : there's despair in my cry, 
Since I wail for Adonis who died to me — died to me — 

Then, I fear thee ! Art thou dead, my adored ? lo 

Passion ^^ ends like a dream in the sleep that's denied 
to me, 

Cypris is widowed ; the Loves seek their lord 
All the house through in vain. Charm of ^^ cestus has 
ceased 

With thy clasp ! Oh, too bold in the hunt past pre- 
venting. 
Ay, ^^ mad, thou so fair, to have strife with a beast ! " 

Thns the goddess zvailed on ; and the Loves are lanieiit- 
ing. 

Ah, ah, Cytherea, Adonis is dead ! Adonis is dead. 

She wept tear after tear with the blood which was shed, 
And both turned into flowers for the earth's garden- 
close, — 

^* Her tear to the wind-flower ; his blood to the rose. 20 

/ mount for Adonis — Adonis is dead. 

Weep no more in the woods, Cytherea, thy lover ! 
So, well : make a place for his corse in thy bed, 

With the purples thou sleepest in, under and over ; 
He's fair, though a corse, — a fair corse, like a sleeper. 

Lay him soft in the silks he had pleasure to fold 



28 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

When, beside thee at night, holy dreams deep and deeper 

Enclosed his young life on the couch made of gold. 
Love him still, poor Adonis ; cast on him together 

The ^^ crowns and the flowers : since he died from the 
place. 
Why, let all die with him ; let the blossoms go wither ; 

Rain myrtles and olive-buds down on his face. 
Rain the myrrh down, let all that is best fall a-pining,^^ 

Since the myrrh of his life from thy keeping is swept. 
Pale he lay, thine Adonis, in purples reclining : 
o The Loves raised their voices around him and wept. 
They have ^' shorn their bright curls off to cast on 
Adonis ; 

One treads on his bow ; on his arrows another ; 
One ^^ breaks up a well-feathered quiver ; and one is 

Bent low at a sandal, untying the strings ; 
And one carries the vases of gold from the springs, 

While one washes the wound, and behind them a 
brother 
Fans down on the body sweet air with his wings. 

Cytherea herself now the Loves are lamenting. 
Each torch at the door Hymenaeus blew out ; 
10 And, the marriage-wreath dropping its leaves as repent- 
in cr 
No more ^^ " Hymen, Hymen," is chanted about; 
But the at, ai, instead — " ai alas " is begun 

For Adonis, and then follows "ai Hymenaeus ! " 
The Graces are weeping for ^^ Cinyras' son. 

Sobbing low, each to each, ** His fair eyes cannot see 
us ! " 
Their wail strikes more thrill than the sadder ^^ Dione's. 
The Fates mourn aloud for Adonis, Adonis, 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS, 29 

Deep chanting : he hears not a word that they say ; 

He ivould hear, but Persephone has him in keeping. 
Cease moan, Cytherea ! leave pomps for to-day, 

And ^weep new, when a new year refits thee for 
weeping. 



NOTES. 

The Author. 

Of the life of Bion we know nothing save that which we gather from 
the Elegy which was written in his honor by his friend and pupil, Moschus 
(see page 43). There is, it is true, a tradition that he was born at Phlossa, 
on the river Meles, near Smyrna, and to this Moschus alludes. He also 
tells us that Bion died of poison, and that his murderers were punished 
for their crime. Other expressions in his poem lead us to suppose that 
Theocritus was still living at the time of Bion's death, which, in such case 
could hardly have been later than 260 B.C. 

The Poem. 

It is the first of the six Idyls usually ascribed to Bion, and was probably 
intended to be sung at one of the spring celebrations of the festival of 
Adonis. Theocritus, in his fifteenth Idyl, gives us another example of the 
songs used on these occasions. 

I. Adonis. The myth of Venus and Adonis probably originated in 
the poetic idea of the union of the Sun and the Earth, as narrated in the 
introductory paragraph (page 20, above). Adonis was the son of Myrrha. 
Even when an infant, his beauty was so wonderful that Aphrodite (Venus) 
conceived a passion for him, and, unknown to all the gods, she put him 
into a coffer, and gave him to Persephone to keep. But the queen of the 
shadow-land refused to give him back. The matter was referred to Zeus, 
and he decreed that during one-third of each year the boy should stay 
with Aphrodite, during another third he should be given to Persephone, 
and during the remaining third he should be his own master. Adonis, 
however, chose to remain with Aphrodite for eight months at a time — 
and this he continued to do until one day, when engaged in the chase, he 
was attacked and slain by a furious wild boar. The goddess, when she 
found him dead in the forest, was overwhelmed with grief: — 



30 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" She looks upon his lips, and they are pale ; 
She takes him by the hand, and that is cold ; 
She whispers in his ears a heavy tale, 
As if they heard the woeful words she told." 

Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis. 

The Adonis of the Norse mythology is called Balder, and he is the type 
of the good, the true, and the beautiful. In a more material sense he is 
also the sun, the revivifying, life-giving sunlight. Through the treachery 
of the evil one, he is slain by blind Hoder, who shoots him with a sprig of 
mistletoe. Forthwith the world is draped in mourning for the death of 
Balder the good; the birds stop singing, and fly to the far-away South- 
land; the beasts hide themselves in their lairs; the trees shiver, and sigh, 
and drop their withered leaves upon the ground; all Nature weeps. Then 
Friga, Balder's mother, sends a messenger to Hela, the goddess of the 
dead, to pray for the return of the bright one to those who love him. And 
the Death-queen consents on condition that everything on earth shall 
weep for him. But Thok, a giantess, refuses to join in the universal 
mourning, and so Hela keeps the hero in her halls. Yet during the half 
of each year he is permitted to visit the earth and to gladden all living 
beings with his smile. 

The worship of Adonis dates from a very early period, and originated 
probably in Assyria. In Phoenicia, in the ancient city of Byblos, a festival 
of two days was held every year in his honor. The first day was observed 
as a day of mourning for the unhappy death of Adonis, or Tammuz, as he 
was known by the Phoenicians; the second was a day of triumph and 
rejoicing because of his return to the earth. The principal participants 
in these festivals were the young women. The prophet Ezekiel alludes 
to them thus : — 

" And he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house which was 
toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz." — 
Ezekiel viii. 14. 

Milton says of the same : — 

" Thammuz came next behind, 
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd 
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate 
In amorous ditties all a summer's day ; 
While smooth Adonis from his native rock 
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood 
Of Thammuz yearly wounded." — Par. Lost, i. 

The " smooth Adonis," thus referred to is the river Adonis, which takes 
its rise in the Lebanon mountains, and during the spring freshets turns 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 31 

red from the red soil of the hills through which it flows. Izaak Walton 
has probably this river in mind when he says, " There is a river in Arabia 
of which all the sheep that drink thereof have their wool turned into a 
vermilion color." 

After the introduction of the worship of Adonis among the Greeks, festi- 
vals in his honor were held in various places, and especially at Alexandria, 
generally continuing eight days. Theocritus, in his Adoniaziisce {Idyl xv. 
alluded to above), describes a visit to one of these festivals — doubtless on 
a day of rejoicing — and allows us to listen to the song of one of the 
maidens chanting the praise of Adonis : — 

" Him will we, ere the dew of dawn is o'er, 
Bear to the waves that foam upon the shore ; 
Then with bare bosoms and dishevell'd hair, 
Begin to chant the wild and mournful air. 
Of all the demigods, they say, but one 
Duly revisits earth and Acheron — 
Thou, dear Adonis ! " 

2. Sleep no more. 

" Methought I heard a voice cry, ' Sleep no more 1 ' " 

Shakespeare, Macbeth, ii. 2. 
Compare with jidonais, iii. 2. 

3. Cytherea. Cythera Avas the name of a mountainous island off the 
southwest coast of Laconia. This island was colonized in very ancient 
times by the Phoenicians who here introduced the worship of Aphrodite. 
Certain traditions relate that it was near the shore of Cythera that Aphro- 
dite first rose from the foam of the sea; and the island was for a long 
time celebrated as one of her favored places of worship. See note 10, 
page 16. 

4. Oread Nymphs. The Oreades, or Nymphs of the mountains and 
grottoes. See Pastor all ^Eglogue upon the Death of Sir Philip Sidney, 1. 62. 

5. Assyrian. According to Panyasis, Adonis was the son of Theias, 
king of Assyria, and hence an Assyrian. Compare this passage with 
Adonais, xiv. 3-6. 

6. rivers sorrow. See Lament for Bion, line 2; also note 21, 
page 48. 

7. Who would not have lamented, etc. Compare with Lycidas, 10. 
Also with Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, line 214: — 

" Who would not weep if Atticus were he ? " 

8. Acheron, and its gloomy, cruel king. By the figure of Synec- 
doche, Acheron is here used to denote the entire region of Hades. See 



32 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

note 24, page 17. The cruel king is Pluto, or Aidoneus, i.e. death, the 
"king of terrors." See Job xviii. 14: "His confidence shall be rooted 
out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors." 

9. Persephone. Queen of Hades, to whose share " falls the whole of 
what is beautiful." " Thou art thyself far more powerful than I." Love 
is sometimes represented as being strong as Death, but not so here : — 

" Love, strong as death, the poet led 
To the pale nations of the dead." 

Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. 

" Love is strong as death." — Song of Solomon, viii. 6. 

10. my longing is fled as a dream. See Job xx. 8 : " He shall flee 
away as a dream, and shall not be found; yea, he shall be chased away 
as a vision of the night." 

11. charmed girdle. Venus's girdle was said to have the magical 
power of exciting love. 

" It gave the virtue of chaste love 
And wifehood true to all that it did bear ; 
But whosoever contrary doth prove 
Might not the same about her middle wear, 
But it would loose, or else asunder tear." 

Spenser, Faerie Queene, canto iii. 

Homer describes it as being — • 

" wrought with every charm 
To win the heart ; there Love, there young Desire, 
There fond Discourse, and there Persuasion dwelt. 
Which oft enthralls the mind of wisest men." 

Iliad, xiv. {Lord Derby's trans.). 

12. wast thou mad enough? etc. Compare with Shakespeare, Venus 
and Adonis, line 615 : — 

" Thou knowest not what it is 
With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore." 

13. Paphian goddess. From Paphos, a city in Cyprus, the chief seat 
of the worship of Venus. 

14. The blood begets a rose, and the tears the anemone. See 
Spenser's Astrophel, line 181 : — 

" The gods . . , pittying this paire of lovers trew, 
Transformed them there lying on the field 
Into one flowre that is both red and blew." 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 33 

See also Moschus's Lament for Bion: " Redden, ye roses, in your sorrow, 
and now wax red, ye wind-flowers." And Shakespeare's FeuMs and 
Adonis, lines 1167-1171 : — 

" And in his blood that on the ground lay spill'd, 
A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white, 
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood 
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood." 

The red niaithes or pheasant's eye, sometimes called Adonis flower, and 
in French goute de sang, is said to have sprung from the blood of Adonis. 
15. Lay him amid chaplets and flowers. See Lycidas, lines 139- 
152. Also Shakespeare, Cyniheline,\\. 2\ — 

" With fairest flowers 
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele, 
I'll sweeten thy sad grave ; thou shalt not lack 
The flower, that's like thy face, pale primrose ; nor 
The azur'd hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor - 
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, 
Out-sweeten'd not thy breath." 

See also Spenser's Shepheards Calender, April: — 

" Bring hether the pincke and purple cullambine, 

With gelliflowres ; 
Bring coronations, and sops in wine, 

Worne of paramoures : 
Strowe me the grounde with daffadowndillies, 
And cowslips, and kingcups, and loved lillies: 

The prety pawnee 

And the chevisaunce, 
Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice." 

Also Milton's Covins, 998-1002: — 

" Beds of hyacinth and roses. 
Where young Adonis oft reposes, 
Waxing well of his deep wound 
In slumber soft, and on the ground 
Sadly sits the Assyrian queen." 

Also Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, iv. 3 : — 

" O, Proserpina, 
For the flowers now, that, frighted, thou let'st fall 
From Dis's wagon ! daflbdils. 
That come before the swallow dares, and take 
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim, 
But sweeter than the Hds of Juno's eyes, 



34 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Or Cytherea's breath ; pale primroses 
That die unmarried, ere they can behold 
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady 
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips, and 
The crown-imperial ; lilies of all kinds, 
The flower-de-luce being one ! " 

It was said that Adonis delighted in gardens. Pliny remarks that 
among the ancients there were none more wonderful than those of the 
Hesperides, of Adonis, and of Alcinous. Shakespeare, in i. Henry IV., 
says : — 

" Thy promises are like Adonis' gardens. 
That one day bloom'd and fruitful were the next." 

Spenser, in T/ie Faerie Queene, iii. 6, gives a detailed and beautiful 
allegorical description of the gardens of Adonis : — 

" Whether in Paphos, or Cytheron hill, 
Or it in Gnidus bee, I wote not well ; 
But well I wote by triall, that this same 
All other pleasant places doth excell. 
And called is by her lost lover's name, 
The Gardin of Adonis, far renowned by fame." 

The boxes and pots of flowers used at the festivals of Adonis were also 
called "Adonis gardens." They were reared specially for the occasion, 
and after the feast they were thrown away. Hence the expression 
"Adonis garden" is sometimes used to designate any short-lived pleasure. 

i6. All flowers have become withered. Ben Jonson, in The Sad 
Shepherd., represents the flowers dying of grief for the loss of a loved 
one: — 

"A spring, now she is dead! of what ? of thorns, 

Briars, and brambles ? thistles, burs and docks ? 

Cold hemlock, yew ? the mandrake or the boc ? 

These may grow still ; but what can spring beside ? 

Did not the whole earth sicken when she died ? 

As if there since did fall one drop of dew. 

But what was wept for her ! or any stalk 

Did bear a flower, or any branch a bloom, 

After her wreath was made ! . . . Do I not know 

How the vale wither'd the same day? " 

See also Lament for Bion, line i6, page 40. Spenser says: — 

" The mantled medowes mourne 
Theyr sundrie colors tourne." 

Shepheards Calender, NoveiJiber. 



THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS. 35 

And Pope : — 

" Ye weeping Loves, the stream with myrtles hide, 
And break your bows, as when Adonis died." — Pastoral iv. 

And Burns : — 

" Mourn, little harebells o'er the lee! 
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see ! 
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie, 

In scented bowers ! 
Ye roses on your thorny tree. 

The first o' flowers! " — Elegy on Mattheio Henderson. 

17. Locks shorn for Adonis. An allusion to an ancient custom of 
shearing the hair in token of mourning for the dead : — 

" In the midst Patroclus came. 
Borne by his comrades ; all the corpse with hair 
They cover'd o'er, which from their heads they shore. . . . 
Then a fresh thought Achilles' mind conceiv'd : 
Standing apart, the yellow locks he shore. 
Which as an off'ring to Sperchius' stream, 
He nurs'd in rich profusion." — Iliad, xxxiii. 135-140. 

" ' I do not blame 
This sorrow for whoever meets his fate 
And dies ; the only honors we can pay 
To those unhappy mortals is to shred 

Our locks away, and wet our cheeks with tears.' " 

Odyssey, iv. 197-201. 

" So he (Socrates) dropped his hand and stroked my head, and pressed my 
hair which lay upon my neck — he often used to play with my hair — and said, 
' Phaedo, I suppose you intend to cut off those beautiful locks to-morrow, as 
a sign of mourning.' " — Plato, Phcedo, 86. • 

" And they shall make themselves utterly bald for thee, and gird them with 
sackcloth, and they shall weep for thee with bitterness of heart and bitter 
wailing." — Ezekiel, xxvii. 31. 

See Adonais, xi. 3. 

18. breaking his well-feather' d quiver. See quotation from Pope, 
note 16, above. Also Adonais, xi. 6. 

19. Hymen. The bridal song : — 

" They led 
The brides with flaming torches from their bowers, 
Along the streets, with many a nuptial song." — Iliad, xviii. 493. 



36 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" And heavenly quires the Hymenean sung." — Paradise Lost, iv. 

" Hymen, O Hymenseus, rejoice thou in this bridal." 

Theocritus, Id. xviii. 

" And Hymen also crowne with wreaths of vine, 
And let the Graces daunce unto the rest, 
For they can doo it best : 

The whiles the maydens doe theyr carroll sing, 
To which the woods shall answer, and theyr eccho ring." 

Spenser, Epithalaniion, 256-260. 

" Hymen, O Hymen, to thy triumphs run. 
And view the mighty spoils thou hast in battle won." 

Dry den, Epithaliuni of Helen and Menelaus. 

20. Cinyras. King of Cyprus, priest of the Paphian Venus, and, 
according to some, the father of Adonis. 

21. Dione. The mother of Aphrodite. But the word here probably 
alludes to Aphrodite herself. 

22. Thou must wail again. There will be another festival to Adonis 
next year, when this wailing and weeping will be repeated. 

" Be propitious now, dear Adonis, and mayest thou give pleasure next year." 
— Theocritus, Id. xv. 



THE LAMENT FOR BION 

AN IDYL BY HIS FRIEND AND PUPIL 

MOSCHUS OF SYRACUSE 

Written in Greek about 260 b.c. 



An English Prose Version by Andrew Lang 



'1 
" If any man sing that hath a loveless heart, him do the Mtises flee, ajid ! 
do not choose to teach him. But if the mind of any be swayed by Love, and j 
sjveetly he sings, to him the Muses all run eagerly T So zvrote Bion, the 
Sttiyrncean, the sweet singer of many pastoral idyls and of love-ditties not 
a few. ^^ And a witness am /," continued he, " that this saying is wholly 
true, for if I sing of any other, mortal or Unmortal, then falters my tongue, 
and sings no longer as of old; but if again to Love and Lycidas I sing, 
then gladly from my lips flows forth the voice of song.'' ^ And afterwards he 
added, " / know not how nor is it fitting I should labor at what I have not 
learned. If my ditties are beautiful, then these only which the Muse has 
presented to me aforetime will give me renozvn. But if these be not to men^s 
taste, what boots it me to labor at more ? " And so he sang of Adonis, slain 
in his beauty on the wooded mountain-top, of the wild grief of Cytherea, 
and the sad lament of the Loves. He sang too of Scyra, emd of Achilles, 
and his love for Deidamia ; and of the seasons, " which is siveetest, spring, 
or winter, or the late autumn, or the summer''^ ; and of the boy, who, with 
his bozu and arrows, lay in wait for Love. Then he taught to others his 
store of pastoral song; he taught " hozv the cross-flute was invented by Pan, 
and the flute by Athene, and by Hermes the tortoise-shell lyre, and the harp 
by sweet Apollo." And were these songs pleasing to men ? Let the memory 
of them which has been kept green for now 77iore than two thousand years 
answer. Let the song with which Moschus, his friend and pupil, lamented 
his untimely deaths answer. 



'iHijt Hament for Bion* 

Wail, let me hear you wail, ye woodland glades, and 
^ thou Dorian water ; and weep ye rivers, for Bion, 
the well-beloved ! Now all ye green things mourn, 
and now ye groves lament him, ye flowers now in sad 
clusters breathe yourselves away. Now redden ye roses 
in your sorrow, and now wax red ye wind-flowers, now 
thou 2 hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and 
add a deeper ai ai to thy petals ; he is dead, the beauti- 
ful singer. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Mtcses, begin the dirge. lo 

^ Ye nightingales that lament among the thick leaves 
of the trees, tell ye to the Sicilian waters of * Arethusa 
the tidings that Bion the herdsman is dead, and that 
with Bion song too has died, and perished hath the 
^ Dorian minstrelsy. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Ye ^ Strymonian swans, sadly wail ye by the waters, 
and chant with melancholy notes the dolorous song, 
even such a song as in his time with voice like yours he 
was wont to sing. And tell again to the " CEagrian 20 
maidens, tell to all the Nymphs Bistonian, how that he 
hath perished, the ^ Dorian Orpheus. 

39 



40 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

No more to his herds he sings, that beloved herds- 
man, no more 'neath the lonely oaks he sits and sings, 
nay, but by Pluteus's side he chants ^ a refrain of obliv- 
ion. The ^^ mountains too are voiceless : and the 
heifers that wander with the herds lament and refuse 
their pasture. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Mnses, begin the dirge. 

Thy sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, 
10 and the Satyrs mourned thee, and the ^^ Priapi in sable 
raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy song, and the 
fountain fairies in the wood made moan, and ^^ their tears 
turned to rivers of waters. And Echo in the rocks 
laments that thou art silent, and no more she mimics 
thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the trees cast 
down their fruit, and ^^ all the flowers have faded. From 
the ewes hath flowed no fair milk, no honey from the 
hives, nay, it hath perished for mere sorrow in the wax, 
for now hath thy honey perished, and no more it be- 
20 hooves men to gather the honey of the bees. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Not so much did the ^* dolphin mourn beside the sea- 
banks, nor ever sang so sweet the nightingale on the 
cliffs, nor so much lamented the swallow on the long 
ranges of the hills, nor shrilled so loud the ^^ halcyon 
o'er his sorrows. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Nor so much, by the gray sea-waves, did ever the sea- 
bird sing, nor so much in the dells of dawn did the ^^ birds 



THE LAMENT FOR BION. 41 

of Memnon bewail the son of the Morning, fluttering 
around his tomb, as they lamented for Bion dead. 

Nightingales, and all the swallows that once he was 
wont to delight, that he would teach to speak, they sat 
over against each other ^"^ on the boughs and kept moan- 
ing, and the birds sang in answer, " Wail, ye wretched 
ones, even ye ! " 

Begiity ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Who, ah, who will ever make music on thy pipe, O 
thrice desired Bion, and who will put his mouth to the lo 
reeds of thine instrument ? who is so bold ? 

For still thy lips and still thy breath survive, and 
Echo, among the reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs. 
To Pan shall I bear the pipe ? Nay, perchance even 
he would fear to set his mouth to it, lest, after thee, he 
should win ^^ but the second prize. 



nn, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Yea, and ^^ Galatea laments thy song, she whom once 
thou wouldst delight, as with thee she sat by the sea- 
banks. For not hke the Cyclops didst thou sing — him 20 
fair Galatea ever fled, but on thee she still looked more 
kindly than on the salt water. And now hath she for- 
gotten the wave, and sits on the lonely sands, but still 
she keeps thy kine. 

Begin, ye Sicilia^i Mnses, begin the dirge. 

All the gifts of the Muses, herdsman, have died with 
thee, the delightful kisses of maidens, the lips of boys ; 
and woful round thy tomb the Loves are weeping. 
But Cypris loves thee far more than the kiss wherewith 
she kissed the dying ^o Adonis. 30 



42 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

This, O most musical of rivers, is thy second sorrow, 
this, ^^ Meles, thy new woe. Of old didst thou lose 
Homer, that sweet mouth of Calliope, and men say thou 
didst bewail thy goodly son with streams of many tears, 
and didst fill all the salt sea with the voice of thy lamen- 
tation — now again another son thou weepest, and in a 
new sorrow art thou wasting away. 

Begin, ye Siciliaii Muses, begin the dirge. 

10 Both were beloved of the fountains, and one ever 
drank of the ^^ Pegasean fount, but the other would drain 
a draught of Arethusa. And the one sang the ^^ fair 
daughter of Tyndarus, and the mighty son of Thetis, 
and Menelaus, Atreus's son, but that other, — not of 
wars, not of tears, but of Pan would he sing, and of 
herdsmen would he chant, and so singing, he tended the 
herds. And pipes he would fashion, and would milk 
the sweet heifer, and taught lads how to kiss, and Love 
he cherished in his bosom and woke the passion of 

20 Aphrodite. 

Begijt, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Every famous city laments thee, Bion, and every 
town. 2"* Ascra laments thee far more than her Hesiod, 
and Pindar is less regretted by the forests of Boeotia. 
Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcasus, 
nor did the Teian town so greatly bewail her poet, while 
for thee more than for Archilochus doth Paros yearn, 
and not for Sappho, but still for thee doth Mytilene 
wail her musical lament. 

[Here seven verses are lost.] 



THE LAMENT FOR BION. 43 

And in Syracuse ^^ Theocritus ; but I sing thee the 
dirge of an ^"^ Ausonian sorrow, I that am no stranger 
to the pastoral song, but heir of the Doric Muse which 
thou didst teach thy pupils. This was thy gift to me ; 
to others didst thou leave thy wealth, ^^ to me thy min- 
strelsy. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

Ah me, when the mallows wither in the garden, and 
the green parsley, and the curled tendrils of the anise, 
on a later day they live again, and spring in another lo 
year; but we men, we the great and mighty, or wise, 
when once we have died, in hollow earth we sleep, gone 
down into silence ; a right long, and endless, and ^s un- 
awakening sleep. And thou, too, in the earth wilt be 
lapped in silence, but the nymphs have thought good 
that the frog should eternally sing. Nay, him I would 
not envy, for 'tis no sweet song he singeth. 

Begin, ye Sicilictn Muses, begin the dirge. 

29 Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth, thou didst know 
poison. To such lips as thine did it come, and was not 20 
sweetened } What mortal was so cruel that could mix 
poison for thee, or who could give thee venom that 
heard thy voice } surely he had ^^no music in his soul. 

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge. 

But justice hath overtaken them all. Still for this 
sorrow I weep, and bewail thy ruin. But ah, if I might 
have gone down ^^ like Orpheus to Tartarus, or as once 
Odysseus, or Alcides of yore, I too would speedily have 
come to the house of Pluteus, that thee perchance I 
might behold, and if thou singest to Pluteus, that I 30 



44 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

might hear what is thy song. Nay, sing to ^^ the Maiden 
some strain of Sicily, sing some sweet pastoral lay. 

And she too is Sicilian, and on the shores by Etna 
she was wont to play, and she knew the Dorian strain. 
Not unrewarded will the singing be ; and as once to 
Orpheus's sweet minstrelsy she ^^gave Eurydice to 
return, with him, even so will she send thee too, Bion, 
to the hills. But if I, even I, and my piping had aught 
availed, before Pluteus I too would have sung. 



NOTES. 

The Author. 

" The poet Moschus seems to have found no kindred spirit to embalm 
his memory in harmonious numbers; or if he had that fortune, it has not 
survived the oblivion which so remorselessly overwhelms the rest of his 
personal history. We reckon him a Syracusan, whose day was about the 
close of the third century before Christ, And he must have been contem- 
poraneous with Bion, probably in age somewhat younger." — Rev. y. 
Banks, 

The Poem. 

The La??ient for Bion is the third of nine Idyls (some of them very 
brief) which constitute all that we have left of the poetical works of 
Moschus. 

1. thou Dorian water; and weep, ye rivers. See note 68, on 
Lycidas ; also notes 12 and 21, below. — all ye green things mourn. 
See note 16, page 34. 

2. hyacinth. Hyacinthus was accidentally killed by his friend Apollo 
while playing at quoits. From his blood sprang the flower hyacinth, upon 
whose leaves appear to be embroidered the Greek exclamation of woe, 
6.1, &L : — 

" The hyacinth bewrays the doleful at, 
And culls the tribute of Apollo's sigh. 
Still on its bloom the mournful flower retains 
The lovely blue that dyed the stripling's veins." 

Canioens, Lusiad, ix. 



THE LAMENT FOR BION. 45 

" I am pretty well satisfied that the flower celebrated by the poets is what 
we now are acquainted with under the name ' Lilium floribus reflexis," or Mar- 
tagon, and perhaps may be that very species which we call Imperial Martagon. 
The flowers of most sorts of martagons have many spots of a deeper color ; and 
sometimes I have seen these spots run together in such a manner as to form 
the letters at in several places." — John Alartyn, 1755 (quoted by Rossetti). 

See also Lycidas, line 105, and Adojiais, xvi. i. 

3. Ye nightingales that lament : — 

" So Philomel, perched on an aspen sprig, 
Weeps all the night her lost virginity. 
And sings her sad tale to the merry twig 
That dances at such joyful misery." 

Giles Fletcher, Christ's Triumph, etc. 
"And Philomele her song with teares doth steepe." 

Spenser, The Shepheards Calender, November. 

4. Arethusa. See note 15, page 17. See also Lycidas, 85 and 132. 
Milton calls Arethusa the " Sicilian Muse," and Virgil calls Sicily, the land 
of pastoral song, by her name. 

5. Dorian minstrelsy. Pastoral songs. Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus 
all wrote in the Doric dialect. " Everything Doric was noted for its chaste 
simphcity." — Brewer. The Dorians were the pastoral people of Greece, 
and their speech was that of the simple country folk. See Lycidas, 189. 

" The Doric reed once more 
Well pleased I tuned." — Thomson, Autumn. 

6. Strymonian swans. Virgil, Georgics, I., refers to Strymonian 
cranes. The river Strymon was the boundary between Macedonia and 
Thrace. It is related that the song of the musical swan {Cygm/s mz(sicus) 
resembles notes played on the vioiin. It was once a popular belief that 
swans sang when about to die. 

" The comparison seemeth to be strange ; for the swan hath ever wonne 
small commendation for her sweete singing. But it is said of the learned that 
the Swanne, a little before her death, singeth most pleasantly, as prophecying by 
a secrete instinct her neere destinie." — Shepheards Calender, October, Glosse. 

" Swans, you know, are said to sing most sweetly when they know that they 
are going to die; they rejoice that they are to go to the deity whose servant 
they are." — Plato, Phcedo, 77. 

" I will play the swan, and die in music." — Shakespeare, Othello, v. 2. 
" Makes a swan-like end. 
Fading in Music." — Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. 

" There, swan-like, let me sing and diQ." — Byron, Don Juan, iii. 86. 



46 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

7. CEagrian maidens. The sisters of Orpheus. Their father was 
CEagrus, king of Thrace. — Bistonian nymphs. Nymphs of Lake Bis- 
tonis, in Thrace, near the home of Orpheus. 

8. Dorian Orpheus. So called because of his Doric minstrelsy. 
John Gay (1688-1732) is sometimes referred to as the "Orpheus of High- 
waymen," from his authorship of The Beggar's Opera. The Irish poet 
and musician, Furlough O'Carolan (1670-1738), is called the "Orpheus 
of the Green Isle." See also note 28, on Lycidas. 

g. a refrain of oblivion. That is, a song of forgetfulness. See 
Theocritus, Id. i. : " Thou canst in no wise carry thy song with thee to 
Hades, that puts all things out of mind." Also Iliad, ii. 600: "They took 
from him the high gift of song, and made him forget his harping," 

10. mountains. See Lycidas, 161, and note on the same. Compare 
with Gray's The Bard: — 

" Mountains, ye mourn in vain 
Modred, whose magic song 
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topped head." 

11. Priapi. See note 9, page 16. — Panes. "Like many other 
gods who were originally single. Pan was multiplied in course of time, 
and we meet with Pans in the plural." — Keightley. — fountain fairies 
made moan. Compare with Spenser : — 

" The water nymphs, that wont with her to sing and daunce, 
Now balefull boughes of cypres doen advaunce." 

The Shepheards Cale)ider, Novetnber. 

12. their tears turned to rivers of waters. See note i, above. 
Also see Bion's Lament for Adonis, line 13, page 22. 

" The flouds doe gaspe, for dryed is their sourse, 
And flouds of teares flow in theyr stead perforce." 

Spetiser, Shepheards Calender, November. 

13. all the flowers have faded. See note 16, page 34. 

14. dolphin. Dolphins were lovers of music. When Arion, having 
won the prize in a musical contest in Sicily, was returning on ship-board 
to Greece, the sailors plotted to murder him in order to secure his treasures. 
Learning of their designs, he placed himself in the prow of the ship, and 
began to play on the cithera. Many song-loving dolphins came about the 
vessel, and the musician, invoking the gods, threw himself into the sea in 
their midst. Then one of them took the bard on his back, and carried 
him in safety to Tsenarus. See Lycidas, 164. 

15. halcyon. Alcyone was the daughter of ^olus, and the wife of 
Ceyx. Her husband having perished in a shipwreck, she threw herself 



THE LAMENT FOR BION. 47 

into the sea, and the gods in compassion changed the two into birds 
called halcyons (kingfishers). 

i6. birds of Memnon. Memnon, the son of the Morning (Aurora), 
was slain by Achilles at Troy, and his mother besought Zeus that his 
memory should have more than mortal honors. Therefore from his funeral 
pyre two flocks of birds arose, which, after circling about the flames for a 
little while, began to fight among themselves; and this strange contest 
continued until the greater number of them perished in the fire. Every 
year thereafter these birds, called Memnonides, returned to the tomb of 
Memnon, and renewed the fight. 

17. on the boughs. Compare with Spenser, Shephcards Calender : — 

" The turtle on the bared braunch 
Laments the wound that Death did launch." 

18. but the second prize. See introductory paragraph, page 8. 

19. Galatea. See Theocritus, Idyl xi., "The Cyclops in Love." 
Galatea was a sea-nymph. For Cyclops, see Odyssey, ix. 

20. See The Lament for Adonis, page 22, line 7. 

21. Meles. A river flowing near Smyrna, and past Phlossa, the birth- 
place of Bion. Homer also was said by some to have been reared on the 
banks of the same river. Calliope was the Muse of epic poetry; hence 
the expression, " that sweet mouth of Calliope." 

22. Pegasean fount. Hippocrene, the " Fountain of the Horse," a 
fountain in Mount Helicon in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses : — 

" Oh for a beaker full of the warm South, 
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene." 

Keats, Ode to a Nightingale. 

draught of Arethusa. The fountain Arethusa, in Sicily. See note 4, 
above. "The one sang in Greece, the other in Sicily." 

23. fair daughter of Tyndarus. Helen. — son of Thetis. Achil- 
les. Homer sang of love and war, but Bion of pastoral life. 

24. Ascra, in Boeotia, the birthplace of Hesiod. Pindar was born in 
the territory of Thebes, either at Thebes or Cynocephalse. Alcseus was a 
native of Lesbos; Anacreon, of Teos, an Ionian city in Asia Minor; 
Archilochus, of Paros; and Sappho, of Mytilene. 

25. Theocritus. Some have supposed from this passage that Theoc- 
ritus was still alive, and lamented the death of Bion. 

26. Ausonian sorrow. That part of the Mediterranean adjoining 
Sicily was called the Ausonian Sea, from Auson, the son of Odysseus. 
Hence Moschus, the Sicilian, calls his sorrow Ausonian or Sicilian. 

27. to me thy minstrelsy. It is from this stanza that we are led to 
infer that Moschus was the pupil of Bion. 



48 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

28. unawakening sleep : — 

" Whence is it that the flowret of the field doth fade, 
And lyeth buried long in Winters bale ? 
Yet, soon as Spring his mantle hath displayde. 
It fiowreth fresh, as it should never fayle ? 
But thing on earth that is of most availe, 
As vertues branch and beauties bud, 
Reliven not for any goode." 

Spe7iser, Slicpheards Calender, November. 

" For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that the tender branch thereof 
will not die. Though the root thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock 
thereof die in the ground, yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring 
forth boughs Uke a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away. . . . Man lieth 
down, and riseth not ; till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor 
be raised out of their sleep." — J^ob xiv. 7-12. 

29. poison. This is all that we know about the manner of Bion's 
death. Compare with Adoiiais, xxxvi. 

30. no music in his soul. See Merchant of Venice, Act v., Sc. I : — 

" The man that hath no music in himself," etc. 

31. like Orpheus to Tartarus. Orpheus descended into Hades (not 
Tartarus) that he might restore to life his wife Eurydice. See Virgil's 
Georgics, iv. See also Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. Odysseus visited 
"the dwelling of Hades and of dread Persephone to seek the spirit of 
Theban Teiresias, the blind soothsayer, whose wits abide steadfast." .See 
Odyssey, x. 488. Alcides (Herakles) visited the under-world in the per- 
formance of a task assigned to him by Eurystheus, namely, " to bring from 
Erebus the loathed hound, Cerberus." See Iliad, viii. 367. 

32. the Maiden. Persephone, the daughter of Demeter. While 
gathering flowers on the Nysian plain, near Etna, in Sicily, she was seized 
by Aidoneus (Pluteus), and borne in his chariot to his gloomy halls in the 
under-world, there to become his queen. 

33. " He sung, and hell consented 

To hear the poet's prayer ; 
Stern Proserpine relented, 
And gave him back the fair." 

Pope, Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. 

" And now retracing his way, he had overpassed all dangers ; and Eurydice 
was just approaching the regions above, following him ; for Proserpina had 
given him that law. ... He stopped, and unmindful and not master of him- 
self, looked back on his Eurydice." — Virgil, Georgics, iv. 



TWO ELEGIES 



DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY 



ASTROPHEL 
By Edmund Spenser 

A PAS TOR ALL ECLOGUE 
By L. B. 



Written about 1587 



Sir Philip Sidney having gone over ijito the Loiv- Countries to aid 
his Uncle, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in defending the united 
Provinces against the Spanish cruelties, he was given command of the 
cautionary Town of Flushing; a Trust which he so faithfidly discharged 
that he turned the Envy of the Dutch Townsmen into Affection and 
Admiratio7t. Not long after some service was to be perfortned nigh Zut- 
phen in Gelderland, where the English through false intelligence were 
mistaken in the strength of the Enemy. Sir Philip is imployed next 
to the Chief in that Expedition; which he so discharged that it is ques- j 
tionable xvhether his Wisdom, Indiistry, or Valour may challenge to it \ 
self the greatest praise of the Actiori. And noiv as the triumphant \ 
Laurel was ready to be wreathed about his brows, the English so near ■ 
the Victory that they touched it, ready to lay hold upon it, an unlucky j 
Bullet shot him thorow the thigh, so that the pain thereof put him into \ 
a Feaver and blasted the expectations of Christendom in his sudden ' 
and unexpected death. ... So general was the lamentation at his \ 
Funerals, that a face thereat might sooner be found without Eyes than j 
without Tears. Lt was accounted a sin for any Gentleman of Quality, I 
for many months after, to appear at Court or City in any light or gaudy i 
Apparel; and, though a private Subject, such solejunities were pre- 
formed at his Interment for the quality and multitude of Mourners, \ 
that few Princes in Christendom have exceeded, if any excelled, the sad \ 
Magnificence thereof . . . N'or indeed were the Muses dumb at this 
time of universall Sorrow ; but many Poets essayed to render in Verse \ 
due homage to his Memory. Edmujid Spenser, who afterwards did 
indite The Faerie Queene, collected six of these Poems into a volume, ; 
himself writing for it the following introductory Elegie. \ 

\ 



astroj)|)cL 



A Pastorall Elegie upon the Death of the Most Noble and Most Valorous Knight, 
Sir Philip Sidney. Dedicated to the Most BeautifuU and Vertuous Ladie, the Countess 
of Essex. 

By Edmund Spenser. 

1 Shepheards, that wont, on pipes of oaten reed, 
Oft times to -^plaine your loves concealed smart; 

And with your piteous layes have learned to breed 
Compassion in a countrey lasses hart; 

Hearken, ye gentle shepheards, to my song, 

And place my dolefull plaint your plaints emong 

To you alone I sing this mournfull verse. 

The mournfullst verse that ever man heard tell : 

To you whose softened hearts it may empierse 
With dolours dart for death of Astrophel. 

To you I sing and to none other ^ wight. 

For well I ^ wot my rymes bene rudely dight. 

Yet as they been, if any ^ nycer wit 

Shall hap to heare, or covet them to read : 

Thinke he, that such are for such ones most fit, 
Made not to please the living but the dead. 

And if in him found ^ pity ever place. 

Let him be moov'd to pity such a case. 



A gentle Shepheard borne in ^ Arcady, 
Of gentlest race that ever shepheard bore, 

About the grassie bancks of ^ Hasmony, 

Did keepe his sheep, his litle ^ stock and store. 

Full carefully he kept them day and night, 

In fairest fields ; and Astrophel he hight. 
51 



52 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Young Astrophel, the pride of shepheards praise, 

Ycung Astrophel, the rusticke lasses love : 
Far ^^ passing all the pastors of his dales, 
10 In all that seemly shepheard might behove. 
In one thing onely fayling of the best. 
That he was not so happie as the rest. 

For from the time that first ^^ the Nymph, his mother, 
Him forth did bring, and taught her lambs to feed ; 

A sclender swaine, excelling far ^^ each other, 
In comely shape, like her that did him breed. 

He grew up fast in goodnesse and in grace, 

And doubly faire woxe both in mynd and face. 

Which daily more and more he did augment, 
20 With gentle usage and demeanure myld : 
That all mens hearts with secret ravishment 

He stole away, and ^^weetingly beguyld. 
1* Ne Spight it self e, that all good things doth spill. 
Found ought in him, that she could say was ill. 

• His sports were faire, his ioyance innocent, 

Sweet without soure, and ^^ honny without gall : 
And he himselfe seemd made for meriment, 

Merily masking both in bowre and hall. 
There was no pleasure nor delightfull play, 
30 When Astrophel so ever was away. 

For 1^ he could pipe, and daunce, and caroll sweet, 
Emongst the shepheards in their shearing feast ; 

As ^"^ somers larke that with her song doth greet 
The dawning day forth comming from the East. 

And layes of love he also could compose : 

Thrise happie she, whom he to praise did chose. 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. S3 

Full many Maydens often did him woo, 

Them to vouchsafe emongst his rimes to name, 

Or make for them as he was wont to doo 

^^ For her that did his heart with love inflame. 40 

For which they promised to dight for him 

Gay chapelets of flowers and gyrlonds trim. 

And ^^ many a Nymph both of the wood and brooke, 

Soone as his oaten pipe began to shrill. 
Both christall wells and shadie groves forsooke 

To heare the charmes of his enchanting skill ; 
And brought him presents, flowers if it were ^o prime, 
Or mellow fruit if it were harvest time. 

But he for none of them did care a whit. 

Yet 21 Woodgods for them often sighed sore ; - 50 

Ne for their gifts unworthie of his wit. 

Yet not unworthie of the countries store. 
For one alone he cared, for one he sigh't 
His lifes desire, and his deare loves delight. 

Stella the faire, the fairest star in skie. 

As faire as Venus or the '^ fairest faire, 
(A fairer star saw never living eie,) 

Shot her sharp pointed beames through purest aire. 
Her he did love, her he alone did honor. 
His thoughts, his rimes, his songs were all upon her. 60 

To her he vowd the service of his dales, 

On her he spent the riches of his wit ; 
For her he made '^ hymnes of immortall praise. 

For onely her he sung, he thought, he writ. 
Her, and but her, of love he worthie deemed ; 
For all the rest but litle he esteemed. 



54 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Ne her with ydle words alone he wowed, 

And verses vaine, (yet verses are not vaine,) 
But with brave deeds to her sole service vowed, 
70 And bold atchievements her did entertaine. 
For both in deeds and words he nourtred was, 
Both wise and '^^ bardie, (too bardie alas !) 

In wrestling nimble, and in renning swift, 

In shooting steddie, and in swimming strong ; 

Well made to strike, to throw, to leape, to lift. 
And all the sports that shepheards are emong. 

In every one he vanquisht every one, 

He vanquisht all, and vanquisht was of none. 

Besides, in hunting such felicitie 
80 Or rather infelicitie he found. 
That every field and forest far away 

He sought where ^^ salvage beasts do most abound. 
No beast so salvage but he could it kill. 
No chace so hard, but he therein had skill. 

Such skill, matcht with such courage as he had, 
Did prick him forth with proud desire of praise 

To seek abroad, of daunger nought '^ y' drad. 
His mistresse name, and his own fame, to raise. 

What needeth perill to be sought abroad, 
90 Since round about us it 2'' doth make aboad } 

It fortuned, as he that perilous game 
In 28 f orreine soyle pursued far away. 

Into a forest wide and waste he came. 

Where store he heard to be of salvage pray. 

So wide a forest and so waste as this. 

Nor famous ^^ Ardeyn, nor f owle Arlo, is. 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 55 

There his welwoven toyles, and subtil traines, 

He laid the ^^ brutish nation to enwrap ; 
So well he wrought with practise and with paines, 

That he of them great troups did soone entrap. loo 

Full happie man (misweening much) was hee, 
So rich a spoile within his power to see. 

Eftsoones, all heedlesse of his dearest ^^ hale, 

Full greedily into the ^^ heard he thrust, 
To slaughter them, and worke their finall ^^ bale, 

Least that his ^ toyle should of their troups be brust. 
Wide wounds emongst them many one he made, 
Now with his sharp borespear, now with his blade. 

His care was all how he them all might kill. 

That none might scape, (so partiall unto none :) no 

^ 111 mynd so much to mynd anothers ill, 

As to become unmyndfull of his owne. 
But pardon that unto the cruell skies. 
That from himselfe to them withdrew his eies. 

So as he rag'd emongst the beastly rout, 

A cruell beast of most accursed brood 
Upon him turnd, (despeyre makes cowards stout,) 

And, with fell tooth accustomed to blood, 
^ Launched his thigh with so mischievous might, 
That it both bone and muscles ^"ryved quight. 120 

So deadly was the dint and deep the wound. 

And so huge streames of blood thereout did flow. 

That he endured not the direfull ^^ stound. 

But on the cold deare earth himselfe did throw ; 

And ^^ whiles the captive heard his nets did rend. 

And, having none ^ to let, to wood did wend. 



56 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

^^ Ah ! where were ye this while his shepheard peares, 

To whom aHve was nought so deare as hee ; 
And ye faire Mayds, the matches of his yeares, 
130 Which in his grace did boast you most to bee ? 
Ah ! where were ye, when he of you had need, 
To stop his wound that wondrously did bleed ? 

Ah ! wretched boy, the shape of ^^ dreryhead. 
And sad ensample of man's suddein end ; 

Full litle faileth but thou shalt be dead, 
^^ Unpitied, unplaynd, of foe or frend ! 

Whilest none is nigh, ** thine eylids up to close, 

And kisse thy lips like faded leaves of rose. 

A sort of shepheards sewing of the chace, 
140 As they the forest raunged on a day. 
By fate or fortune came unto the place, 

Where as the lucklesse boy yet bleeding lay ; 
Yet bleeding lay, and yet would still have bled, ' 
Had not good hap those shepheards thether led. 

They stopt his wound, (too late to stop it was !) 
And in their armes then softly did him reare : 

*^ Tho (as he wild) unto his loved lasse, 
His dearest love, him dolefully did beare. 

The dolefulst biere that ever man did see, 
150 Was Astrophel, but dearest unto mee ! 

^ She, when she saw her Love in such a plight. 
With crudled blood and filthie gore deformed. 

That wont to be with flowers and gyrlonds dight. 
And her deare favours dearly well adorned ; 

Her face, the fairest face that eye mote see. 

She likewise did deforme like him to bee. 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 57 

Her yellow locks that shone so bright and long, 

As sunny beames in fairest somers day, 
She fiersely tore, and with outragious wrong 

From her red cheeks the roses rent away : 170 

And her faire brest, the threasury of ioy. 
She spoyld thereof, and filled with annoy. 

His palled face, impictured with death, 

She bathed oft with teares and dried oft : 
And ^^ with sweet kisses suckt the wasting breath 

Out of his lips like lillies pale and soft. 
And oft she cald to him, who answered nought, 
But onely by his lookes did tell his thought. 

The rest of her impatient regret. 

And piteous mone the which she for him made, 170 

No toong can tell, nor any forth can set. 

But he whose heart like sorrow did invade. 
At last when paine his vitall poures had spent, 
His wasted life her weary lodge ^^ forwent. 

Which when she saw, she staied not a whit. 

But after him did make untimely haste : 
Forthwith her ghost out of her corps did flit. 

And followed her make like *^ turtle chaste : 
To prove that death their hearts cannot divide, 
Which living were, in love so firmly tide. 180 

The gods, which all things see, this same beheld. 

And, pittying this paire of lovers trew. 
Transformed them there lying on the field 

Into one ^^ flowre that is both red and blew ; 
It first grows red, and then to blew doth fade. 
Like Astrophel, which thereinto was made. 



58 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And in the midst thereof a star appeares, 

As fairly f ormd as any star in skyes : 
Resembling Stella in her freshest yeares, 
190 Forth darting beames of beautie from her eyes : 
And all the day it standeth full of deow, 
Which is the teares, that from her eyes did flow. 

That hearbe of some, Starlight is cald by name, 
Of others Penthia, though not so well : 

But thou, where ever thou doest finde the same, 
From this day forth do call it Astrophel : 

And, when so ever thou it up doest take. 

Do pluck it softly for that shepheards sake. 

Hereof when tydings far abroad did passe, 
200 The shepheards all which loved him full deare, 
And sure full deare of all he loved was, 

Did thether flock to see what they did heare. 
And when that pitteous spectacle they vewed, 
The same with bitter teares they all bedewed. 

And every one did make exceeding mone. 

With inward anguish and great griefe opprest : 

And every one did weep and waile, and mone, 
And meanes deviz'd to show his sorrow best. 

That from that houre, since first on grassie greene 
210 Shepheards kept sheep, was not like mourning seen. 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. S9 



a Pastorall acfilogue/' 

Lycon. Colin. 

Lycon. Colin, well fits thy sad cheare this sad 
^2 stownd, , 

This wofull stownd, wherein all things complaine 
This great mishap, this greevous losse of owres. 
Hear' St thou the ^^ Grown ? how with hollow sownd 
He slides away, and murmuring doth plaine, 
And seemes to say unto the fading flowres, 
Along his bankes, unto the bared trees : — 
^ PJiillisides is dead! Up, iolly swaine, 
Thou that with skill canst tune a doleful lay. 
Help him to mourn. My hart with grief doth freese, lo 
Hoarse is my voice with crying, else a part 
Sure would I beare, though ^^ rude : But as I may, 
With sobs and sighes I second will thy song, 
And so expresse the sorrowes of my hart. 

Colin. Ah Lycon, Lycon, what need skill to teach 
A grieved mynd powre forth his plaints ! how long 
Hath the ^pore turtle gon to school (weenest thou) 
To learne to mourne her lost ^'^ make ! No, no, each 
Creature by nature can tell how to waile. 
Seest not these flocks, how sad they wander now } 20 

Seemeth their leaders bell their bleating tunes 
In dolefull sound. Like him, not one doth faile 
With hanging head to shew a heavie cheare. 



60 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

What bird (I pray thee) hast thou seen, that ^^ prunes j 

Himselfe of late ? Did any cheerfull note ' 

Come to thine eares, or gladsome sight appeare ; 
Unto thine eies, since that same f atall howre ? 

Hath not the aire put on his mourning coat, j 
And testified his grief with flowing teares ? 

30 Sith then, it seemeth each thing to his powre i 

Doth us invite to make a sad consort ; 1 

Come, let us ioyne our mournfull song with theirs. i 

Griefe will endite, and sorrow will enforce '\ 

Thy voice ; and echo will our words report. I 

i 

Lycon. Though my rude rymes ill with thy verses i 

frame, 1 

That others farre excell ; yet will I force j 

My selfe to answere thee the best I can, I 

And honor my base words with his high name. 1 

But if my plaints annoy thee where thou sit -i 

40 In secret shade or cave, vouchsafe (O ^^ Pan) \ 

To pardon me, and hear this ^^ hard constraint ^ 

With patience, while I sing, and pittie it. .\ 

And eke ye rurall Muses, that do dwell ; 

In these wilde woods, if ever piteous plaint ■ 

Ye did endite, or taught a wofull minde ' 

With words of pure affect his griefe to tell, ^ 

Instruct me now. Now, Colin, then go on, 

And I will follow thee, though farre behinde. j 

1 

Coliji sinsrs. \ 



%i" 



PhilHsides is dead. ^^ O harmfull death, 
50 O deadly harme ! Unhappy Albion, 

When shalt thou see, emong thy shepheardes all 
Any so sage, so perfect } Whom ^^ uneath 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 61 

Envie could touch for vertuous life and skill 

Curteous, valiant, and liberall. 

Behold the sacred ^^ Pales, where with haire 

Untrust she sitts, in shade of yonder hill ; 

And her faire face, bent sadly downe, doth send 

A floud of teares to bathe the earth ; and there 

Doth call the heav'ns despightfull, envious, 

Cruell his fate, that made so short an end 60 

Of that same life, well worthie to have bene 

Prolonged with many yeares, happie and famous. 

The ^* Nymphs and Oreades her round about 

Do sit lamenting on the grassie grene ; 

And with shrill cries, beating their whitest brests, 

Accuse the direfull dart that death sent out 

To give the fatall stroke. The starres they blame 

That deafe or carelesse seeme at their request. 

The pleasant shade of stately groves they shun ; 

They leave their cristall springs, where they wont frame 70 

Sweet bowres of myrtel twigs and lawrel faire. 

To sport themselves free from the scorching sun. 

And now the hollow caves where horror darke 

Doth dwell, whence banisht is the gladsome aire. 

They seeke ; and there in mourning spend their time 

With wailf ull tunes, whiles ^^ wolves do howl and barke. 

And seem to beare a bourdon to their plaint. 

Lycoii sings. 
Phillisides is dead ! O doleful! ryme ! 
Why should by toong expresse thee } Who is left 
Now to uphold thy hopes, when they do faint, 80 

Lycon unfortunate ! What spitefull fate, 
^^ What lucklesse destinie, hath thee bereft 
Of thy chief comfort — of thy onely stay ! 



62 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Where is become thy wonted happie state, 
(Alas !) wherein through many a hill and dale, 
Through pleasant woods, and many an unknown way 
Along the bankes of many silver streames 
Thou with him yodest ; and with him didst scale 
The craggie rocks of th' Alpes and Appenine ! 

90 Still with the Muses sporting, while those beanies 
Of vertue kindled in his noble brest, 
Which after did so gloriouslly forth shine ! 
But (woe is me !) they now yquenched are 
All suddeinly, and death hath them opprest. 
Loe ^" father Neptune, with sad countenance, 
How he sits mourning on the strond now bare. 
Yonder, where th' Ocean with his rolling waves 
The white feete washeth (wailing this mischance) 
Of Dover cliffes. His sacred skirt about, 

100 The sea-gods all are set ; from their moist caves 
All for his comfort gathered there they be. 
The ^^Thamis rich, the Humber rough and stout, 
The fruitfull Severne, with the rest are come 
To helpe their lord to mourne, and eke to see 
The dolefull sight, and sad pomp funerall. 
Of the dead corps passing through his kingdome. 
And all the heads, with ^^ cypres gyrlonds crown'd 
With wofull shrikes salute him great and small. 
Eke wailfull Echo, forgetting her deare 

no Narcissus, their last accents doth resownd. 

Coliii sings again. 

Phillisides is dead ! O lucklesse age ; 

O widow world ; '^ O brookes and fountains cleere ; 

hills, O dales, O woods, that oft have rong 



ON THE DEA TH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNE Y. 63 

With his sweet caroling, which could asswage 

The fiercest wrath of tygre or of beare : 

Ye Silvans, Fawnes, and ^^ Satyres, that emong 

These thickets oft have daunst after his pipe ; 

Ye Nymphs and Nayades with golden heare, 

That oft have left your purest cristall springs 

To hearken to his layes, that coulden wipe 120 

Away all grief e and sorrow from your harts : 

Alas ! who now is left that like him sings ? 

When shall you heare againe like harmonic ? 

So sweet a sownd who to you now imparts ? 

Loe where engraved by his hand yet lives 

The name of Stella in yonder "^ bay tree. 

Happie name ! happie tree ! faire may you grow, 

And spred your sacred branch, which honor gives 

To famous Emperours, and Poets crowne. 

^^ Unhappie flock that wander scattred now, 130 

What marvell if through grief ye woxen leane. 

Forsake your food, and hang your heads adowne ! 

For such a shepheard never shall you guide. 

Whose parting hath of weale bereft you cleane. 

Lycon sings again. 
Fhillisides is dead ! O happie sprite. 
That now in heav'n with blessed soules doest bide : 
Looke down awhile from where thou "'^ sitst above, 
And see how busie shepheards be to endite 
Sad songs of grief, their sorrowes to declare, 
And gratefull memory of their kynd love. 140 

Behold my selfe with Colin, gentle swaine, 
(Whose lerned Muse thou cherisht most whyleare,) 
Where we, thy name recording, seeke to ease 
The inward torment and tormenting paine, 



64 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

That thy departure to us both hath bred ; 
Ne can each others sorrow yet appease. 
Behold the fountains now left desolate, 
And withred grasse with cypres boughes he spred ; 
Behold these ^^ floures which on thy grave we strew ; 
150 Which, faded, shew the givers faded state, 

(Though eke they shew their fervent zeale and pure,) 
Whose onely comfort on thy welfare grew. 
Whose praiers importune shall the heav'ns for ay, 
That, to thy ashes, rest they may assure : 
That learned shepheards honor may thy name 
With yeerly praises, and the Nymphs alway 
Thy tomb may deck with fresh and sweetest flowres ; 
And that forever may endure thy fame. 

Colin. "^^ The sun (lo !) hastned hath his face to steep 
160 In western waves ; and th' aire with stormy showres 
Warnes us to drive homewards our silly sheep : 
Lycon, lett's rise, and take of them good keep. 
Virtute siumna ; ccetera fortwia. 

L. B. 



NOTES. 

The Authors. 

I. Edmund Spenser was born in London about the year 1552. In 
1569 he entered Pembroke College, Cambridge, where in due course of 
time he received the degree of M.A. It was probably at college that he 
became acquainted with Sir Philip Sidney, by whom he was afterwards 
introduced to the queen's favorite, the Earl of Leicester. In 1579 he 
published his Shepheards Calender, which placed him at once in the front 
rank of English poets. In 1580, as secretary to Lord Grey de Wilton, he 
went to Ireland where, with the exception of two visits to England, he 



OjV the death of sir PHILIP SIDNEY. 65 

remained during the rest of his life. The first three books of the Faerie 
Queene were pubHshed in 1590, and the second three in 1596. In 1598 
an insurrection occurred in Ireland, and Kilcolman Castle, Spenser's resi- 
dence, was burned by the rebels, he himself with his family escaping with 
great difficulty. Early in the following year, broken-hearted and in great 
distress, he died in King Street, Westminster. 

" Spenser was not only a great poet himself, but in a singular degree 
was the cause — that is, the immediate cause — of poetry in others." — 
Hales. 

" Of all poets, Spenser is the most poetical." — Hazlitt. 

II. Ludovick Brysket, the author of the Pastorall Aeglogue, was 
Spenser's predecessor in the service of the Council of Munster, Ireland, 
and an intimate friend not only of the poet, but doubtless of Sir Philip 
Sidney also. It is from a pamphlet written by him, entitled A Discourse 
of Civil Life and published in 1606, that we have the first trustworthy 
account of the composition of the Faerie Qiicene. Of his poetical works 
we have only the two pieces included in the tribute to Sidney mentioned 
below. 

The Introduction. 

For the Introduction I am indebted largely to ^tXocpiXnruis, the biog- 
rapher of Sir Philip Sidney, whose quaint sketch of the life of his friend 
forms the preface to the latter's Arcadia in the edition of 1674. 

The Poems. 

The elegy entitled Astrophel is Spenser's contribution to a collection of 
memorial poems on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, written probably in 
1587, but not published until 1595. It is made to serve, in fact, as an 
introduction to a poetical " handfuU of flowers that decked the mourn- 
full herse of Sidney " ; for, after Spenser, — 

" full many other moe, 
As everie one in order loved him best, 
Gan dight themselves t'expresse their inward woe, 
With doleful! lays unto the time addrest. 
The which I here in order will rehearse." 

This collection included The Dolefull lay of Clorinda, probably by 
Sidney's sister Mary, the Countess of Pembroke ; The Mourning Muse of 
Thestylis, and A Pastorall Aeglogue, by Ludovick Brysket, " a swaine of 
gentle wit and daintie sweet device, whom Astrophel full deare did enter- 
taine"; An Elegie, or Friends Passion for his Astrophel, by Matthew 



66 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Roydon; and two short poems whose authorship is unknown. We here 
present the introduction, Astrophel, and the second of Brysket's poems, 
A Pastorall Aeglogue. 

Astrophel (lover of a star). Sir Philip Sidney — a name assumed by 
himself, and frequently applied to him by his friends and admirers. As 
the name Phihp Sidney is fancifully derived from philos, a lover, and sidus, 
a star, so Astrophel is derived from astron, a star, and philos. Penelope 
Devereux, the daughter of the Earl of Essex, for whoin Sidney entertained 
a passion, was called Stella, or the Star, and to her his sonnets, entitled 
Astrophel and Stella, were addressed. 

" But while as Astrofell did live and raine, 
Amongst all these was none his paragone." 

Spenser, Colin Clouts come Home Again, 450. 

1. Shepheards. Courtiers, friends of Sidney. Shepherds and flocks 
are indispensable to pastoral poetry. — pipes of oaten reed. The typical 
musical instrument of pastoral life. Compare with Lycidas, 33 and 88; 
also with Milton's Comus, 345 : — 

" Might we but hear 
The folded flocks penn'd in their wattled cotes, 
Or sound of pastoral reed with oaten stops." 

Also with Shakespeare, Love's Labotir's Lost, v. 2 : — 

" When shepherds pipe on oaten straws." 

2. plaine. Lament. From Lat. plangere, to beat the breast : — 

" We with piteous heart unto you pleyne."— Chaucer. 

See also plaint, below. — loves. The apostrophe was not used by the 
earlier English writers as a sign of the possessive case of nouns. 

3. wight. Person, human being. From A.-S. wiht. 

4. wot. Know. Present tense, third, singular of the old verb zvit. 
From A.-S., zvitan.—my rymes bene rudely dight. My rhymes be 
roughly adorned or arranged. Compare with Skelton (1460-1529) : — 

" Though my rhyme be ragged, 
Tattered and gagged, 
Rudely rain-beaten, 
Rusty, moth-eaten, 
Yf ye take welle therewithe, 
It hath in it some pithe." 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 67 

5. nycer. More exacting. — wit. See wight, note 3, above; also 
wot, note 4, and note the force of both in this word. 

6. pity. Observe the play upon the noun pity and the verb to pity, 
below. An example of euphuism, an affected style of expression very 
fashionable among the gallants of the court of Queen Elizabeth. See also 
the use of plame, plaint, diXid plaiftts in the first stanza. 

7. Arcady. Arcadia was the land of shepherds, of simple country 
life and manners, of homely enjoyment and contentment. It was, even 
more than Sicily, the land of pastoral song. So pastoral poetry is often 
called Arcadic. But it is probably in reference to Sidney's authorship of 
the romance entitled Arcadia that Spenser here speaks of him as *' born 
in Arcady." 

" Sidney, than whom a gentler, braver man, 
His own delightful genius never feigned, 
Illustrating the vales of Arcady 
With courteous courage and with loyal loves." — Southey. 

8. Haemony. Haemonia, a town in Arcadia, founded by Hsemus. 
Also the ancient name of Thessaly. See Milton's use of the word in an 
entirely different sense in Coimis, 637, as a plant *' of sovran use 'gainst all 
enchantments," etc. . 

g. stock. " In what an almost infinity of senses the word stock is 
employed. We have live stock; ^/^c>^-in- trade; the village stocks; the 
stock of a gun; the stock dove; the stocks on which ships are built; the 
stock which goes round the neck; the family stock; the stocks or public 
funds in which money is invested; and other stocks besides these. What 
point in common can we find among them all? This — they are all derived 
from, and were originally the past participle of, to stick, which, as it now 
makes stuck, made formerly stock., and they cohere in the idea of fixedness 
which is common to them all. Thus the stock of a gun is that in which 
the barrel is fixed ; the village stocks are those in which the feet are fast- 
ened; the j/^r/^-in-trade is the fixed capital, and so too is the stock on the 
farm, although the fixed capital has there taken the shape of horses and 
cattle; in the stocks, or public funds, money sticks fast, inasmuch as those 
who place it there cannot withdraw the capital, but receive only the inter- 
est; the stock of a tree is fast set in the ground, and from this use of the 
word, it is transferred to a family; the stock or stirps is that from which it 
grows, and out of which it unfolds itself." — Trench. — hight. Was 
called. Although active in form, this word, used in the present tense or 
as a preterite, is passive in meaning. From A.-S. hatan, to call. 

10. passing all the pastors. Observe the euphuism. — pastors. 
Shepherds. From Lat. pascere, to pasture. 



68 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

11. the Nymph, his mother. "His mother was Daughter to John 
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. We know that a Pippin grafted on a 
Pippin is called a Renate, as extracted from Gentil Parentage. Gardeners 
have a mystery by Innoculating Roses on Roses (the original, they say of 
the Province) to make them grow double. I could in like manner avow 
the double excellency of such, who are descended of Noble Ancestors." — 
4>tXo0tXi7ra;s. 

12. each other. That is, every other swain. 

13. weetingly. Wittingly, knowingly. 

14. Ne. Not. — spill. Destroy, mar. From A.-S., spillatt, to 
destroy. " Spill not the morning, the quintessence of the day, in recrea- 
tions." — Fuller. 

" To choose whether she would him save or spill." 

Chaucer, Wife 0/ Baths Tale. 

15. "A little gall embitters a great deal of honey." — Spanish Proverb. 

16. he could pipe. Compare with Lycidas, line 10. 

17. somers larke, etc. Compare with Shakespeare, Cymbeline, ii. 3 : — 

" The lark at heaven's gate sings 
And Phoebus gins rise." 

18. For her. For "Stella," Penelope Devereux. See note on Astro- 
phel, above, and note 46, below. 

19. many a Nymph. Compare with Lycidas, 31;. 

20. prime. Spring. 

" Hope waits upon the flowery prime." — Waller. 

21. Woodgods. Referring doubtless to some of Sidney's companions 
or contemporaries. So the companions of Lycidas were fauns and satyrs. 
See Lycidas, 34. 

22. fairest faire, etc. Euphuism again. 

23. hymnes. The sonnets entitled Astrophel and Stella, in which 
Sidney celebrated his love for Lady Devereux. See note 46, below. 

24. hardie. Resolute, brave. Compare with Chaucer : — 

" Hap helpeth hardy man alway." 

25. salvage. The old form of the word savage. From Lat. silva, a 
woodr silvaticus, belonging to a wood. 

26. y'drad. Dreading, fearing. 

27. doth make aboad. Doth dwell. 

28. forreine soyle. Holland. See introductory note, page 50. — 



ON THE DEATH OF SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 69 

forest wide. The country in the neighborhood of Flushing and Zutphen, 
where the battle was fought. 

29. Ardeyn. Probably Ardennes, an ancient forest of great extent in 
the north of France. This forest is made famous in Boiardo's Orlando 
Innatnorato (1495), and is probably the forest of Arden of Shakespeare's 
As You Like It : — 

" 0/L Where will the old Duke live ? 

CAa. They say he is already in the Forest of Arden, and a many merry 
men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood of England." — 
Act i., Sc. I. 

There was also a forest of Arden in the central part of England. But the 
Arden of the poets, wherever it may have been (whether Arden, Ardeyn, 
or Ardennes), was a product of the imagination : — 

" The forest-walks of Arden's fair domain, 
Where Jaques fed his solitary vein, 
No pencil's aid as yet had dared supply. 
Seen only by the intellectual eye." — Charles Lamb. 

As to the fowle Arlo, it was possibly suggested by the ancient village of 
Arlon in northern France almost surrounded by the forest of Ardennes. 

30. brutish nation. The Spanish. Spenser here forgets his meta- 
phors, and lapses into literal terms and expressions. 

31. dearest hale. Best welfare, safety. Akin to hale (or hail), 
sound, healthy, whole. From O. E. heil. 

32. heard. The poet returns to his metaphors, and the "brutish 
nation " becomes a " herd " of cruel beasts, a " beastly rout," etc. 

33. bale. Destruction. From A.-S. bealu, evil. 

34. toyle. Ambush, trap, nets. Now commonly used in the plural, 

toils : — 

"Toils for beasts, and lime for birds were found." — Dryden. 

troups. Crowds. — bnist. Burst. 

35. Ill mynd. Unfortunate disposition. Observe the euphuism in 
these lines, using /// as an adjective and a noun, and myjid as a noun, a 
verb, and an adjective (in nnmyndfull). 

36. Launched his thigh. See The Lament for Adonis (page 25, 
line 3). Launch, to pierce as with a lance, to lance. 

37. ryved. Split, cleaved asunder, rifted. 

38. stound. Sudden pain. Akin to stun, stunned. 

39. whiles. Meanwhile. — nets. See note 34, above. 

40. to let. To hinder, or prevent. From A.-S. lettan. The same 
word with the opposite meaning, to permit, is from A.-S. laetan. In its 



70 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

first meaning it is now obsolete except in the legal phrase, " without let 
or hindrance." 

41. Ah! where were ye? Compare with Lycidas, 50; with the 
Sorrow of Daphnis, Hne 3; and with Adonais, ii. I. See note 3, page 14. 

42. dreryhead. Sorrow, dismalness = drearihood : — 

" She grew to hideous shape of dryrihed, 
Pined with grief of folly late repented." — Spettser, Muiopotmos. 

43. unpitied, etc. Compare with Scott: — 

" And, doubly dying, shall go down, 
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung." 

Lay of the Last Minstrel, vi. i. 

44. thine eylids up to close. Compare with Dryden : — 

" On the bare earth expos'd he lies, 
With not a friend to close his eyes." — Alexatiders Feast. 

Also with Pope, Elegy on an unfortunate Lady, 49 : — 

" No friend's complaint, no kind domestic tear 
Pleas'd thy pale ghost, or grac'd thy mournful bier ; 
By foreign hands thy dying eyes were clos'd." 

Also with Bion's Lament for Adonis (page 21, line 12). — sort. Com- 
pany. — sewing of the chace. Following the chase. The word sewing is 
akin to the word sue, to woo, to follow up, to pursue. 

45. Tho. Then. — wild. Willed, wished. Observe the play on the 
words beare and biere. 

46. She. Referring to " his loved lasse," Stella (Lady Devereux). But 
the entire narrative that follows is purely fanciful. At the time of Sidney's 
death, "Stella" had already been married to Lord Rich, and was then a 
widow. She soon married a second time, becoming the wife of Charles 
Blount whom James I. afterwards created Earl of Devonshire. 

47. with sweet kisses, etc. Compare with the Lament for Adonis, 
(page 22, line 28). 

48. forwent. Departed from, went out of. — her weary lodge. Its 
" tenement of clay." 

49. turtle. See note 56, below. 

50. flowre. See note 14, page 33. 

51. The Pastoral Aeglogue is the fourth in the collection of poems on 
the death of Sir Philip Sidney. Its poetical merits are not of a high 
order, but it is given here rather to show its probable connection with, and 
influence upon, other works of the same class. Of the two shepherds 



ON THE DEATH OE SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. 71 

(poets) represented as talking, Lycon is Bryskett himself. " Colin " is 
"Colin Clout," or Spenser. See lines 81-89. 

52. stownd. Time, or occasion. See note 38, above, for the use of 
the word stound, which has a very different meaning. 

53. Grown. Probably a river or other stream of water in the neigh- 
borhood of the writer's home or near the country residence of the Sidneys. 

54. Phillisides. Phil. Sid., Philip Sidney; philos, a lover; sidiiSy a 
star. See note on Astrophel, above. 

55. rude. See note 4, on 7ny rymes bene rudely dight, above. 

56. pore turtle. The poor turtle-dove, noted for its mournful note 
and believed to have great affection for its mate : — 

" Why then, sir, I will take a liberty to tell or rather to remember you what 
is said of turtle-doves, — first that they silently plight their troth and marry; 
and that then the survivor scorns, as the Thracian women are said to do, to 
outlive his or her mate, and this is taken for truth ; and if the survivor shall 
ever couple with another, then not only the living but the dead, be it either the 
he or the she, is denied the name and honor of a true turtle-dove." — Izaak 
Walton, Complete Arigler. 

" The moan of doves in immemorial elms." — Tennyson, The Princess. 

" The Turtle by him never stird, 
Example of immortall love." — Matthew Roydon. 

The name turtle was not applied to the tortoise until about 1610, twenty 
years after the writing of this poem. 

57. make. Mate. This is the original form of the word now exclu- 
sively written mate. From A.-S. maca. The word match, a companion, 
an equal, is also from the same root : — 

" And of fair Britomart ensample take, 
That was as true in love as turtle to her make." 

The Faerie Queene, iii. 11. 

58. prunes. Plumes. Sometimes written /r*?^;/^. 

59. Pan. The god of flocks and herds, and hence specially regarded 
with love and fear by all shepherds. He is described in the Homeric 
hymns as " lord of all the hills and dales " : — 

" Universal Pan 
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, 
Led on the eternal S^rmg." — iMilton, Paradise Lost, iv. 266. 

Observe Lycon's sudden change of address from his companion, Colin, to 
the god Pan and the rural Muses. See The Sorrow of Daphnis. 



72 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

60. hard constraint. Compare with Milton's " bitter constraint," 
Lycidas, 6 (see page 79), 

61 . harmful! death, deadly harme. Euphuism again. — Albion. 
England. Conjecture derives the word from Gael, alp, a highland; from 
albtis, white, with reference to the white cliffs visible from Gaul; or from 
Albiones, the ancient inhabitants of Britain. 

62. uneath. Scarcely. 

63. Pales. The goddess of sheepfolds and pastures, especially revered 
by the Romans. — untrust. Untrussed, disarranged. Compare this pas- 
sage with Bion's reference to Aphrodite's unkempt hair, Lament for 
Adonis, page 21, bottom. Also Asfrophel, 57, and Adonais, xiv. 4. 

64. Nymphs and Oreades. See note 4, page 31. 

65. wolves. Compare with The Sorrow of Daphnis, line 10, and with 
7%e Lament for Bion. Also see note 6, page 15. 

66. What lucklesse destinie, etc. Compare with Milton, Lycidas, 
92 and 107; and see note 8, page 16. 

67. father Neptune. See Lycidas, 90. 

68. Compare the mention of the river-gods Thamis, Humber, and 
Severn, with Milton's reference to Camus, Lycidas, 103. See also note i, 
page 44, and Lajnent for Bion, line 2. 

69. cypres. The cypress was an emblem of death, and was dedicated 
by the Romans to Pluto. — echo. Compare with Lament for Bion, page 
40, line 13, and with Adonais, xv. 

70. Compare these lines with the opening lines of Moschus's Lament 
for Bion. 

71. Satyres . . . daunst. Compare with I^ycidas, 34. — wipe away 
all grief e. Compare with L^ycidas, 181. 

72. bay tree. The laurel. Poets and victors in the Pythian games 
were crowned with wreaths of laurel. Hence, a poet laureate was origi- 
nally one who had received such honor. The reference here is doubtless 
to Sidney's series of sonnets entitled Astrophel and Stella. See note i, 
page 86. 

73. Unhappie flock, etc. Compare with Lycidas, 125. 

74. sitst above. Compare with Lycidas, 172 et seq. ; and see note 
64, page 93. 

75. flowres. See note 15, page -^i. 

76. The sun, etc. Compare with Lycidas, 190-191; and see note 
69, page 94. 



DIRGE FOR IMOGEN 

FROM THE TRAGEDY OF CYMBELINE 
By William Shakespeare 



Written about i6io 



Overtaken by misfortune^ hnogen, the daughter of Cymbeline, king of 
Britain, was wandering in a forest, disguised as a page. Led by chance, 
she came to a cave wherein dwelt old Belarius and with him her own 
brothers, Polydore and Cadwal, whom he had stolen from their father in 
their infancy. She told them that her name was Fidele, and that she had lost 
her way while trying to reach Milford-Haven, where a kinsjuan of hers tvas 
about to ejnbark for Italy. The wild forest youths, grown no7v to ??ianhood^ s 
stature, welcomed her to their rude home, and she gladly accepted their press- 
ing invitation to stay ivith them tintil she had rested frojn the fatigue of 
her journey. The longer she remained with thei7i, the more attached did 
they become to her and she to the??i. " How angel-like he sings," said 
Polydore. ^' But his neat cookery" said Cadwal; "he sauced our broths as 
though Juno had been sick, and he her dieter P Then there came a day 
when Belarius and the brothers must go hunting, for their stock of venison 
was low. But Imogen was ill and cotdd not go out with thou. No sooner 
was she left alone than she took from her pocket a cordial which had been 
given her, and which until that mojtient she had forgotten, and drank it off. 
Nozv the person from whom she had received the cordial did not know its 
nature, else he would not have given it to her. It caused her to fall into a 
sound sleep, so deathlike that to all appearances she was dead. When Be- 
larius and the brothers returned to the cave they foiind her lying., as they 
supposed lifeless^ on the ground. . . . Then they carried her to a shady 
nook in the forest, and zvith great sadness in their hearts covered her 7vith 
leaves and flowers. " While summer lasts and I live here," said Polydore, 
" /'// szveeten thy sad grave with flozvers. Thou shall not lack the flower 
thafs like thy face, pale primrose ; nor the azur^d hare-bell, like thy veins ; 
no, nor the leaf of eglantine., zvhom not to slander, out-sweeten' d not thy 
breath. All these zvill I strezv o'er thee." . . . And then the brothers sang 
repose to the spirit of their unknotvn guest. 



©trge for Imogen- 

Fear no more the heat o' th' sun, 
Nor the furious winter's rages ; 

Thou thy worldly task hast done, 

Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages 

Golden lads and girls all must, 

As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. 

Fear no more the frown o' th' great. 
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke ; 

Care no more to clothe and eat ; 
To thee the reed is as the oak : 

The sceptre, learning, physic, must 

All follow this, and come to dust. 

Fear no more the lightning-flash, 
Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone ; 

Fear no slander, censure rash ; 
Thou hast finish'd joy and moan : 

All lovers young, all lovers must 

Consign to thee, and come to dust. 

No exorciser harm thee ! 
Nor no witchcraft charm thee ! 
Ghost unlaid forbear thee ! 
Nothing ill come near thee ! 
Quiet consummation have ; 
And renowned be thy grave ! 
75 



16 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

' [A variation by William Collins, 1 746.] 

DIRGE IN CYMBELINE. 

To fair Fidele's grassy tomb 

Soft maids and village hinds shall bring 
Each opening sweet of earliest bloom, 

And rifle all the blooming Spring. 

No wailing ghost shall dare appear, 
To vex with shrieks this quiet grove, 

But shepherd lads assemble here, 
And melting virgins own their love. 

No wither'd witch shall here be seen, 
No goblins lead their nightly crew ; 

The female fays shall haunt the green. 
And dress thy grave with pearly dew. 

The red-breast oft at evening hours 
Shall kindly lend his little aid. 

With hoary moss and gather'd flowers, 
To deck the ground where thou art laid. 

When howling winds and beating rain. 
In tempests shake thy sylvan cell ; 

Or 'midst the chase on every plain. 

The tender thought on thee shall dwell. 

Each lonely scene shall thee restore, 
For thee the tear be duly shed ; 

Belov'd till life can charm no more ; 
And mourn'd till Pity's self be dead. 



LYCIDAS 

A PASTORAL ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF EDWARD KING 
By John Milton 

1637 



Edward King zvas the son of Sir John King, zvho during the later years 
of Elizabeth and the reigns of the first two Stuarts was royal Secretary 
for Ireland. He was a young man of many accomplishments and much 
promise. In 1626, when only fourteen years of age, he entered Christ's 
College, Cajnbridge, where Milton, then in his third college year, was laying 
the foundation for his future illustrious career. King became at once a 
favorite among the students. He composed verses — some of which, written 
in Latitt, are still preserved, and after graduation he zuas made a fellow and 
tutor in the college. It was the intention of himself and his friends that he 
should enter the Church, and his studies zvere all directed towards prepar- 
ing him for that important and responsible position. Just at the time when 
the promises of his life seemed brightest, he decided upon making a visit to 
some of his friends in Ireland, and took passage on board a vessel at Chester 
for that purpose. When off the Welsh coast the ship struck upon a rock, 
and through the blow leaked and gaped. " While the other voyagers busied 
themselves in vain with mortal life,''' says a contemporary, " King, aspiring 
after the immortal, threzo himself upon his knees, and as he prayed tvas 
swallowed up by the waters along with the vessel, and gave his life to God, 
on the loth of August, in the year of salvation i6j'}, of his life twenty-five.^'' 
A few fnonths after this deplorable event a small volume of verses in honor 
of the young scholar zuas published in Cambridge. It contained thirty-six 
pieces (twenty-three of which were in Greek or Latin), and one of them 
was entitled 'Lycidzs and signed jf. M., zvith the date " Novemb. /^jy." 



ILgcitias. 

^ Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, 
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, 
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude. 
And with ^ forc'd fingers rude, 
^ Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. 
* Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear 
Compels me to disturb your season due ; 
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, 
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer : 
^ Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew 
Himself to sing and build the lofty rhyme. 
He must not float upon his watery bier 
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind 
Without the meed of some ^ melodious tear. 

*" Begin, then. Sisters of the sacred well 
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ; 
Begin, and somewhat loudly ^ sweep the string. 
Hence with denial vain and coy excuse : 
So may some gentle ^ Muse 
With lucky words favor my destin'd urn. 
And, as he passes, turn 
And bid fair peace be to my ^^ sable shroud. 

For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill,^^ 
Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill ; 

79 



80 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Together both, ere the ^^ high lawns appear'd 
Under the opening eye-Hds of the ^^ Morn, 
We ^^ drove afield, and both together heard 
What time the gray-fly winds ^^ her sultry horn, 
1^ Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, 

30 Oft till the star that rose at evening bright 

Toward heaven's descent had slop'd his ^^ westering 

wheel. 
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute ; 
Temper'd to the ^^ oaten flute. 

Rough 1^ Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel 
From the glad sound would not be absent long ; 
And 2^ old Damoetas lov'd to hear our song. 

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone, 
Now thou art gone, and never must return ! 
Thee, shepherd, thee the '^^ woods and desert caves 

40 With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown, 
And all their '^ echoes mourn : 
The willows and the hazel copses green, 
Shall now no more be seen 
Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 
As killing as the '^ canker to the rose, 
Or 24 taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze, 
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear 
When the first white-thorn blows. 
Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear. 

50 2^ Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep 
Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas } 
For neither were ye playing on ^^ the steep 
Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie. 
Nor on the '^^ shaggy top of Mona high. 
Nor yet where ^^ Deva spreads her wizard stream : 
Ay me ! I ^ fondly dream ! 



LYCIDAS. 81 

Had ye been there — for what could that have done ? 

What could the ^^ Muse herself that Orpheus bore, 

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son 

Whom universal Nature did lament, 60 

When, by the rout that made the hideous roar, 

His gory visage down the stream was sent, 

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore ? 

Alas ! what ^^ boots it with incessant care 
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade, 
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse ? 
Were it not better done, as others use, 
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, 
Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair ? 

Fame is ^^ the spur that the clear spirit doth raise 70 

(That last infirmity of noble mind) 
To scorn delights and live laborious days ; 
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find. 
And think to burst out into sudden ^^ blaze. 
Comes the ^* blind Fury with abhorred shears 
And slits the thin-spun life. ** But not the praise," 
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my ^^ trembling ears ; 
" Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. 
Nor in the ^^ glistering foil 

Let off to the world, nor in broad rumor lies : 80 

But lives and spreads aloft by those ^^ pure eyes 
And perfect witness of all-judging Jove ; 
As he pronounces lastly on each deed, 
Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed." 

O fountain ^^Arethuse, and thou honor'd flood 
Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds ! 
That strain I heard was of a higher mood ; 
But now my ^^ oat proceeds. 
And listens to the ^ herald of the sea 



82 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

90 That came in Neptune's plea. 

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds, 
What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain ? 
And question' d every gust of ^^ rugged wings 
That blows from off each beaked promontory. 
They knew not of his story ; 
And sage ^ Hippotades their answer brings, 
That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd ; 
The air was calm, and on the level brine 
Sleek ^3 Panope with all her sisters play'd. 

100 It was that fatal and perfidious bark. 

Built in the ^ eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark, 
That sunk so low that sacred head of thine. 

Next ^^ Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow. 
His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge. 
Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge 
Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe. 
'* Ah ! who hath reft " (quoth he) '' my dearest pledge "i " 
Last came, and last did go. 
The ^^ pilot of the Galilean lake ; 

1 10 Two massy keys he bore of metals twain, 
(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain,) 
He shook his miter'd locks, and stern bespake : 

" How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, 
Enow of such, as for their bellies' sake 
Creep and intrude and ^" climb into the fold 1 
Of other care they little reckoning make 
Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast. 
And shove away the worthy bidden guest. 
*^ Blind mouths ! that scarce themselves know how to 
hold 

120 A sheep-hook, or have learnt aught else the least 
That to the faithful herdman's art belongs ! 



L YCIDAS. 83 

What ^^ recks it them ? What need they ? They are 

sped; 
And, when they list, their lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw ; 
The ^"^ hungry sheep look up and are not fed. 
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw. 
Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread : 
Besides what the ^^ grim wolf with privy paw 
Daily devours apace, and nothing sed : 
But that ^2 two-handed engine at the door 130 

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more." 

Return '^^ Alpheus, the dread voice is past 
That shrunk thy streams ; return, Sicilian Muse, 
And call the vales, and bid them hither cast 
Their bells and ^'^flowrets of a thousand hues. 
Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use 
Of shades and wanton winds and gushing brooks 
On whose fresh lap the swart-star sparely looks, 
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes, 
That on the green turf suck the honey'd showers, 140 

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers. 
Bring the ^^ rathe primrose that forsaken dies. 
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine. 
The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet. 
The glowing violet, 

The musk-rose, and the well-attir'd woodbine, 
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, 
And every flower that sad embroidery wears : 
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed, 

And daffadillies fill their cups with tears, ^ 150 

To strew the ^ laureate hearse where Lycid lies. 
For, so to interpose a little ease, 
^"^ Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise ; 



84 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Ay me ! whilst thee the shores and sounding seas 
Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd, 
Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, 
Where thou, perhaps, under the whehning tide 
Visit'st the bottom of the ^^ monstrous world ; 
Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied, 
i6o Sleep'st by the fable of ^^ Bellerus old. 

Where the great vision of the guarded mount 
Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold ; 
Look homeward, ^*^ angel, now, and melt with ruth, 
And O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth. 

^^ Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more. 
For Lycidas your sorrow is ^^ not dead. 
Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor. 
So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, 
And yet anon repairs his ^^ drooping head, 

170 And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky : 
So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high. 
Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves. 
Where, other groves and other streams along, 
With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves. 
And hears the ^^ unexpressive nuptial song. 
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love. 
^^ There entertain him all the saints above. 
In solemn troops, and sweet societies, 

180 That sing, and, singing in their glory, move, 
And ^^ wipe the tears forever from his eyes. 

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more ; 
Henceforth thou art the ^^ Genius of the shore. 
In thy large recompense, and shalt be good 
To all that wander in that perilous flood. 



LYCIDAS. 85 

Thus sang the ^^ uncouth swain to the oaks and rills, 
While the still Morn went out with sandals gray. 
He touch'd the tender stops of various quills, 
With eager thought warbling his ^^ Doric lay ; 
''^And now the Sun had stretch'd out all the hills, 190 

And now was dropt into the western bay. 
^^ At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue : 
To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new. 



NOTES. 

The Author. 

John Milton was born in Bread street, London, December 9, 1608. 
He was educated at St. Paul's School, London, and at Christ's College, 
Cambridge. His first poem of importance was the Hymn on the Morning 
of Chris fs Nativity, written in 1629. This was followed by U Allegro and 
// Penseroso, companion pieces, by the Arcades (1633), and by the dra- 
matic poem Comzts (1637). Lycidas was also written in 1637. From 
1640 until the decline of the Commonwealth, Milton took an active part 
in politics, and his writings during this period were entirely prose. Para- 
dise Lost, his greatest work, appeared in 1667. Paradise Regained and 
the tragedy Samson Agonistes were published in 1 67 1. Milton died in 
1674. See note on Adonais, iv. 9. 

" Milton ! thou should'st be living at this hour : 
England hath need of thee : she is a fen 
Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, 
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; 
Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; 
And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power. 
Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart : 
Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea : 
Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free, 
So didst thou travel on life's common way. 
In cheerful godliness ; and yet thy heart 
The lowliest duties on herself did lay." — Wordsworth (1802). 



.86 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



The Poem. 



"This piece, unmatched in the whole range of English poetry, and 
never again equalled by Milton himself, leaves all criticism behind. 
Indeed, so high is the poetic note here reached, that the common ear 
fails to catch it. Lycidas is the touchstone of taste; the i8th century 
criticism could not make anything out of it. . . . It marks the point of 
transition from the early Milton of mask, pastoral, and idyl, to the quite 
other Milton, who, after twenty years of hot party struggle, returned to 
poetry in another vein, — never to the ' woods and pastures ' of which he 
took a final leave in LycidasP — Mark Pattison. 

The Title. 

Lycidas is the name of a shepherd in the second Idyl of Bion, and in 
the third Eclogue of Virgil. Milton probably selected it on account of its 
original signification of whiteness or purity. 

1. Yet once more. " Milton's conceptions of a poet's work and of the 
preparation needed for it were of the highest. He was ever striving after 
* inward ripeness,' and conscious how far he was from attaining it. This 
sense of his unfitness to perform as yet a poet's high duties had determined 
him to write no more till he was sensible of being maturer; till 'the mel- 
lowing year ' had dawned. But the death of his dear friend forced him 
to intermit this high resolve. Therefore ' yet once more ' would he write ; 
he would yet again play the poet, though he knew well his proper hour 
had not yet come." — Hales. — laurels. See note on bay tree, page 72 : — 

" The laurel, meed of niightie conquerours 
And poets sage." — Faerie Queene, i. i, 9. 

myrtles. The myrtle was symbolic of love and peace. Pliny relates that 
the Romans and Sabines made friendship under a myrtle tree, and purified 
themselves with its branches. — ivy. This plant was also a symbol of 
friendship; it was sacred to Bacchus, and like laurel the meed of poets. 
See Virgil's Eclogues, vii. 27 : " Ye Arcadian shepherds, deck with ivy your 
rising poet." And viii. 13: "Accept my songs and permit thts ivy to 
creep around thy temples among thy victorious laurels." 

2. forc'd. Forceful, violent. 

3. shatter. Scatter. Compare with Paradise Lost, x. 1065 : — 

" The winds 
Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks 
Of these fair-spreading trees." 



L VCIDAS. 87 

4. bitter constraint. Compare with hard constraint^ Pastorall 
ALglogue, 41. — sad occasion. The Pastorall yEglogtie has " sad stownd " 
(see note 52, page 71). — dear. Dire, dreadful; possibly from A.-S. 
derian, to hurt : — 

" Would I had met my dearest foe in heaven, 
Or ever I had seen that day, Horatio." — Shakespeare, Hamlet. 

The word dear as most commonly used, meaning beloved or costly, is from 
A.-S. deare, greatly esteemed, rare. 

5. who would not sing. See note 7, page 31. 

6. melodious tear. Tearful melody. 

7. Begin, then. Compare with Theocritus, Song of Thyrsis : " Begin, 
ye Muses dear," etc. (see page 9) ; also with Moschus, Lament for Bion : 
" Begin, ye Sicilian Muses," etc. See note i, page 14. The " Sisters of 
the sacred well " are the nine Muses. The sacred well is the Pierian 
Spring at the foot of Mount Olympus, " the seat of Jove." Here, accord- 
ing to Hesiod, was the birthplace of the Muses. Other fountains, as that 
of Helicon in Boeotia, and the Castalian Spring near Mount Parnassus, 
were identified with their worship. Compare with : — 

" Rehearse to me, ye sacred Sisters nine. 
The golden brood of great Apolloes wit, 
Those piteous plaints and sorrowfull sad tune 
Which late ye poured fourth as ye did sit 
Beside the silver springs of Helicone, 
Making your music of hart-breaking mone ! " 

Spenser, Tea res of the A fuses, 1-6. 

" With the Muses of Helicon let us begin to sing, with them who haunt the 
mountain, vast and divine, of Helicon, and with tender feet dance round the 
dark-colored fountain and altar of mighty Jove." — Hesiod, Theogony, i. 

8. sweep the string. Compare with Pope : — 

" Descend, ye Nine, , . . 
And sweep the sounding lyre." — Ode on St. Cecilia's Day. 

9. Muse. Poet; as in Shakespeare's Sonnet, 21 : — 

" So is it not with me as with that Muse, 
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse." 

— destin'd urn. Coffin, grave. See note 56, below. 

10. sable shroud. Black coffin, — that is, the "destin'd urn" men- 
tioned above, 

11. They had both been educated at the same college — Christ's 
College, Cambridge. 



88 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

12. high lawns. Compare with Gray's Elegy, vii. 

13. eyelids of the Morn. Compare with Romeo and Juliet, ii. 3, i : — 

" The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night." 
And with Job iii. 9, marg. : — 

" Neither let it see the eyelids of the morning,'^' 

14. drove afield. See Gray's Elegy, stanza vii. 

15. her sultry horn. Compare with Collins : — 

" Or where the beetle winds 
His small but sullen horn, 
As oft he rises 'midst the twilight path, 
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum." — Ode to Even'wg. 

The gray-fly, or trumpet-fly, hums during the hottest part of the day. 
Compare with Gray's Elegy, ii. 3. 

16. Battening. Feeding, taking care of. 

17. westering. Westward going. Compare with Chaucer, Troilus 
and Creseide, ii. 906 : — 

" The dales honour and the Heavens eye 
Can westren fast, and downward for to wrie." 

18. oaten flute. See note i, page 66. 

19. Satyrs and Fauns. The University men at Cambridge. But 
compare the expression with Virgil, Eclogue vi. 27 : " Then you might 
have seen the Fauns and savages frisking in measured dance, then the 
stiff oaks waving their tops." The passage is imitated by Pope in Pasto- 
rals, ii : — 

" Rough Satyrs dance, and Pan applauds the song." 

20. old Damoetas. "Probably W. Chappell, the tutor of Christ's 
College in Milton and King's time." — Hales. Both Theocritus and Virgil 
use the name in their pastorals. Damcetas is also a prominent character 
in Sidney's Arcadia. 

21. woods and desert caves. Compare with the Lament for Bion, 
line 15, page 40. 

22. echoes. See Lament for Bion, Xm^ 13, page 40; also Adonais, 
stanza 15, page 122. Compare with Wordsworth, Intimations of Lmmor- 
tality : — 

" 1 hear the echoes through the mountain throng." 

23. canker. A disease incident to trees, causing the bark to fall off. 
The word was also formerly used to indicate a worm or insect injurious to 



LYCWAS. 89 

roses, and such is probably its meaning here. See Shakespeare, Mid- 
summer Night's Df-eam, ii. 2, 3 : — 

" Some to kill cankers in the musk-rose buds." 

24. taint-worm. A parasitic insect, or larva, destructive to animals, 
especially sheep. 

25. Where were ye, Nymphs ? See Sorrow of Daphnis, line 2, 
page 9; also note on the same. Compare this and the passage following 
it with Virgil's Eclogues, x. : " What groves, ye virgin Naiads, detained 
you? . . . For neither any of the tops of Parnassus, nor those of Pindus 
nor Aonian Aganippe, did retard you." 

26. the steep. Probably Kerig-y-Druidion among the heights of 
South Denbighshire, where were the burial places of the Druids. An- 
other supposition is that Penmaenmawr in Wales is meant. See Gray's 
Bard. 

27. shaggy top of Mona. The island of Anglesey, "called by the 
bards ' the shady island,' because it formerly abounded with groves of 
trees; but there is now little wood, except along the bank of the Menai." 

28. Deva. The river Dee : — 

" Dee, which Britons long ygone % 

Did call divine, that doth by Chester turn." 

Spetiser, The Faerie Queene, iv. 11. 

^ 29. fondly. Used here in its original meaning o{ foolishly . 
30. Muse. Calliope was the mother of Orpheus. The latter was 
torn in pieces by the Thracian women while under the influence of their 
Bacchanalian orgies. His head was thrown into the Hebrus river, down 
which it floated to the sea, and was finally carried to Lesbos, where it was 
recovered and buried. See Pope's Ode on St. Cecilia's Day : — 

" See, wild as the winds, o'er the desert he flies ; 
Hark ! Haemus resounds with the Bacchanals' cries — 
Ah see, he dies ! " 

See also Virgil's Georgics, iv. 5 20: "The Ciconian matrons, amid the 
sacred service by the gods and nocturnal orgies of Bacchus, having torn 
the youth in pieces, scattered his limbs over the wide fields. And then 
CEagrian Hebrus rolled down the middle of its tide his head torn from 
the alabaster neck." See also Paradise Lost, vii. 34 : — 
" That wild rout that tore the Thracian bard 

In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears 

To rapture, till the savage clamor drown'd 

Both harp and voice ; nor could the Muse defend 

Her son." 



90 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

31. boots. Avails. From A. -S. <55/, advantage. — to tend, etc. "Of 
what avail is it to devote so much attention to poetry, or the poet's trade? " 

Amaryllis. A pastoral sweetheart mentioned by Virgil. See Eclogues, 
i. 4: "You, Tityrus, stretched at ease in the shade, teach the wood to 
re-echo beauteous Amaryllis." A name applied to the Countess of Derby 
in Spenser's Colin Clouts come Home Again, 435. Milton wrote his Ar- 
cades as part of an entertainment to be presented in the presence of this 
same lady by some noble persons of her family (1633). — Neaera's hair. 
Compare with the following lines from Lovelace : — 

" When I lie tangled in her hair, 
And fetter'd to her eye, 
The birds that wanton in the air 
Know no such liberty." 

32. the spur. Hales compares this passage with the following from 
Dryden : " Reward is the spur of virtue in all good acts, all laudable 
attempts; and emulation, which is the other spur, will never be wanting 
when particular rewards are proposed." 

33. blaze. " For what is glory but the blaze of fame? " 

Paj-adise Regained, iii. 

34. blind Fury. Milton evidently means the Fate, Atropos, whose 
office it is to cut the thread of life after it has been spun by her two sisters, 
Clotho and Lachesis : — 

" Sad Clotho held the rocke, the whiles the thrid 
By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine. 
That cruell Atropos eftsoones undid. 
With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine: 
Most wretched men, whose days depend on thrids so vaine." 

The Faerie Queene, iv. 2, 48. 

" The fatall sisters, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, daughters of Herebus 
and the Night, whome the poets faine to spin the life of man, as it were a long 
thred, which they draw out in length, till his fatall houre and timely death be 
come ; but if by other casualtie his daies be abridged, then one of them, that 
is, Atropos, is said to have cut the threed in twaine." — Shepheards Calender, 
Glosse. 

35. trembling ears. See Virgil's Eclogues, vi. 3: "When I offered 
to sing of kings and battles, Apollo twitched my ear." Touching the 
ears was probably significant of refreshing the memory. The tingling 
(trembling ?) of the ears was formerly believed to indicate that some one 
was talking about the person to whom they belonged : — 



Z VCIDaS. 91 

" One ear tingles ; some there be 
That are snarling now at me." — Herrick, Hesperides. 

36. glistering foil. Alluding to the tinsel or metallic leaf used for 
"setting oft" jewels. The connection here is: "Fame is . . . not set off to 
the world in glistering foil, nor does it lie in broad humor, etc." 

37. pure eyes. See Habakkukx. 13: "Thou art of purer eyes than to 
behold evil." 

38. Arethuse. See note 15, page 17. The allusion here is to pastoral 
poetry as exemplified by Theocritus and other Sicilian poets. See also 
note 53, below. — Mincius. A river in northern Italy, tributary to the 
Po. The poet Virgil's birthplace was on its banks. — smooth-sliding. 
Smoothly gliding. 

39. oat. See note i, page 66. 

40. herald of the sea. Triton, the son of Neptune. He came to 
plead Neptune's innocence of the death of Lycidas. He calls in the winds 
as witnesses for the defence. Compare with A Pastoral yEglogue, 95. 

41. rugged wings. Turbulent winds. 

42. Hippotades. ^olus, the god of the winds, son of Hippotes, " the 
horseman." 

43. Panope. One of the sea-nymphs, daughter of Nereus and Doris. 
Her sisters were the Nereides. 

44. eclipse. It was a popular superstition that a curse rested upon 
whatever was done during an ecHpse. Compare Paradise Lost, i. 597: — 

" As when the sun . . . 
. . . from behind the moon 
In dim eclipse disastrous twilight sheds." 

See also Shakespeare, Macbeth, iv. i, 28. 

The conclusion of Triton's investigations concerning the causes of the 
wreck is that the ship on which Lycidas had embarked was unseaworthy, 
and that she sank in calm waters. 

45. Camus. The genius of the river Cam, on which is situated Cam- 
bridge, and the university wherein Lycidas was nurtured, — hence called 
"reverend sire." Compare with The Moiirning Mtise of Thestylis 

(1587):- 

"The Thames was heard to roar, the Reyne, and eke the Mose, 
With torment and with grief: their fountains pure and cleere 
Were troubled, and with swelling flouds declared their woes." 

In further explanation of this passage Plumptre says: "The 'mantle' is 
as if made of the plant 'river-sponge,' which floats copiously in the Cam; 
the * bonnet ' of the river-sedge, distinguished by vague marks traced 
somehow over the middle of the leaves after the fashion of the at, af, of 
the hyacinth." See note 2, page 44. 



92 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

46. pilot. St. Peter. In Christian art he is represented, as here, with 
two keys; hence, two keys, borne saltire-wise, are the insignia of the 
Pope. The bishops of Winchester, Gloucester, Exeter, St. Asaph, and 
Peterborough, in England, also bear two keys. The leading thought in 
the next twenty-three hnes seems to be the loss which the church sustained 
by the death of Lycidas. 

47. climb into the fold. See John x. i. " He that entereth not Vjy 
the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is 
a thief and a robber." Milton refers to false teachers and preachers, and 
especially to the corruptions existing in the church. His sympathies are 
with the Puritans, just then rising into power, as opposed to the rituahsm 
which was then being enforced by Archbishop Laud. 

48. blind mouths. "A singularly violent figure, as if men were 
mouths and nothing else." — Masson. 

49. recks. Concerns. " What do they care?" From A.-S. r^r^;/, to 
care for. Compare with Milton's Comus, 404 : — 

" Of night or loneliness it recks me not." 
sped. Provided for. Compare with Shakespeare's Merchant of 
Venice, ii. 9, 72: "So, begone; you are sped." — list. Wish, choose. 
That is, when they choose to exercise the herdsman's art. — scrannel. 
Akin to scrawny, lean, thin, insufficient. 

50. hungry sheep. Compare this entire passage with Spenser, Shep- 
heards Calender, May : — 

" Thilke same bene shepheardes for the devils stedde, 
That playen while their flockes be unfedde. 
But they bene hyred for little pay 
Of other, that cared as little as they 
What fallen the flocke, so they hau the fleece." 

51. grim wolf. Probably an allusion to the Catholic Church, which 
was at that time having many accessions. 

52. two-handed engine. " He means to say generally that the time 
of retribution is at hand. Some commentators, unwisely in my opinion, 
take the words as a definite prophecy of Laud's execution (in 1645). Cer- 
tainly they could never have been understood in that sense at the time of 
the poem's first publication ' under the sanction and from the press of one 
of our universities,' and when ' the proscriptions of the Star Chamber and 
the power of Laud were at their height.' " — Hales. Compare with Matt, 
iii. 10. '* And now also the axe is laid at the root of the trees." Also 
Luke iii. 9. 

53. Alpheus. See note on Arethusa, above. In the Arcades, Milton 
refers to the — 



LYCWAS. 93 

" Divine Alpheus, who by secret sluice 
Stole under seas to meet his Arethuse." 

The name is used here, however, simply as a personification of pastoral 
poetry, and Milton means that after his digression on churches and pastors 
he will now return to his original strain. 

54. flowrets. Compare this entire passage with the passages quoted 
or referred to in notes 15 and 16, pages t^^) ari<^ 34- 

55. rathe. Early. Still retained in its comparative form, rather. 

56. laureate hearse. Poet tomb. Compare with Milton's Epitaph 
on the Marchioness of Winchester : — 

" And some flowers and some bays 
For thy hearse to strew the ways, 
Sent thee from the banks of Came." 

57. Let our frail thoughts, etc. That is, let us imagine that Lycidas 
really lies in a tomb and is not lost in the vast ocean. 

58. monstrous world. World of monsters. 

59. Bellerus. A Cornish giant. "Bellerium was the name formerly 
given to the promontory of the Land's End. It was the home of a mighty 
giant, after whom, in all probability, the headland was called." — Hunt's 
/romances of the West of England. Milton at first wrote it Corineus, a 
giant from whom the name Cornwall was derived. — guarded mount. 
Mount St. Michaels, a steep rock near Penzance in Cornwall. Warton 
says : " There is still a tradition that a vision of St. Michael seated on this 
crag, appeared to some hermits." The land here looks almost directly 
towards Namancos and Bayona near Cape Finisterre. 

60. angel. St. Michael. That is, turn your gaze away from the dis- 
tant Spanish coast and look towards the shores where doubtless the body 
of Lycidas lies. 

61. Weep no more, etc. See The Sorrow of Daphnis, page 12. 

62. not dead. See Adonais, xxxix. i. Compare with the Countess 
of Pembroke's Dolefnll Lay of Clorinda : — 

" Ay me, can so divine a thing be dead? 
Ah ! no : it is not dead, ne can it die." 

63. drooping head. Compare with Gray's Bard: — 

" To-morrow he repairs the golden flood." 

64. unexpressive. Inexpressible. — nuptial song. See page 36. 

65. There entertain him, etc. Compare this entire passage with 
The Dolefnll Lay of Clorinda : — 



94 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" There liveth he in everlasting blis, 
Sweet Spirit never fearing more to die : 
Ne dreading harm from any foes of his, 
Ne fearing salvage beasts more crueltie." 

Also with Pastorall ALglogue, line 136; also The Faerie Queene, iii. 6, 48 : — 

" There now he liveth in eternal blis, 
loying his goddess, and of her enioyd." 

Also Paradise Lost, xi. 82 : — 

" By the waters of life, where'er they sat 
In fellowships of joy." 

Also The Shepheards Calender, November : — 

" There lives shee with the blessed gods in blisse, 
There drincks she nectar with ambrosia mixt, 
And ioyes enioyes that mortall men doe misse. 
The honor now of highest gods she is." 

66. wipe the tears. Compare with Kevelationy'xx. 17: "And God 
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." 

67. Genius. Good spirit, guardian angel. — recompense. That is, in 
the great compensation or reward which is thine. Compare with Shake- 
speare, The Tempest, iv. I, I : — 

" If I have too austerely punished you, 
Your compensation makes amends." 

68. uncouth. Uncultivated, rude; perhaps rather in the sense of 
unknown. 

6g. Doric lay. See note 5, page 45. 

70. And now, etc. Compare with Jeremiah vi. 4 : " For the shadows 
of the evening are stretched out." Also with Pope's Pastorals, iii. : — 

" Thus sung the shepherds till the approach of night. 
The skies yet blushing with departing light, 
When falling dews with spangles deck'd the glade, 
And the low sun had lengthen'd every shade." 

And with Virgil, Eclogue i. 83 : " And now the high tops of the villages 
smoke afar off, and longer shadows fall from the lofty mountains." 

71. At last. Compare with Fletcher, The Purple Island : — 

" Hence, then, my lambs ; the falling drops eschew: 
To-morrow shall ye feast in pastures new." 



ELEGY 

WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD 
By Thomas Gray 

1750 



** Gray's Elegy is perhaps the most zvidely knoivn poem in our language. 
The reason of this extensive popularity is perhaps to be sought in the fact 
that it expresses in an exquisite manner feelings and thoughts that are 
universal. In the current ideas of the Elegy there is perhaps nothing that 
is rare, or exceptional, or out of the com??ion way. The musings are of 
the 7f lost ratio7ial and obvious character possible ; it is difficult to conceive 
of any one musing under similar circumstances zvho should not muse so ; 
but they are not the less deep and moving on this account. The mystery of 
life does not become clearer, or less solemn and axvfid, for any amount of 
contemplation. Such inevitable, such everlastijig questions as rise in the 
mindzvhen one lingers in the precincts of Death can never lose their fresh- 
ness, never cease to fascinate and to move. It is with such questions, that 
would have been commonplace long ages since if they could ever be so, that 
the Elegy deals. It deals with them in no lofty philosophical manner, but 
in a siffiple, humble, unpretentious way, always zvith the truest and broad- 
est humanity. The poefs thoughts turn to the poor ; he fo7'gets the fine 
tombs inside the church, and thinks only of the ' mouldering heaps ' in the 
churchyard. Hence the problem that especially sttggests itself is the poten- 
tial greatness, when they lived, of the * rtide forefatJiers ' that noiu lie at 
his feet. He does not and cannot solve it, though he finds considerations 
to mitigate the sadness it must inspire ; but he expresses it in all its 
awfulness in the most effective language and with the deepest feeling ; and 
his expression of it has become a living part of our language.''^ — Rev. 
J. W. Hales. 



lElegg 



WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 



>J«<C 



The ^ curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 
The lowing herd ^ wind slowly o'er the lea, 

The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 



Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight. 
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,^ 

Save where the '^ beetle wheels his droning flight, 
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds : 



Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower, J 

The moping owl does to the moon complain i 

Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, " 

Molest her ancient solitary ^ reign. 

97 



98 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade, 
Where heaves ^ the turf in many a mouldering heap, 

Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 

The '' rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. 

The breezy call of ^incense-breathing morn, 

The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 

The cock's shrill ^clarion, or the echoing horn, 
No more shall rouse them from their ^^ lowly bed. 

6. 

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, 
Or busy housewife ^^ ply her evening care : 

No children run to lisp their sire's return,^^ 
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share. 



7. 

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield. 

Their furrow oft the stubborn ^^ glebe has broke ; 

How jocund did they drive their team ^* afield ! 

How bow'd the woods beneath their ^^ sturdy stroke ! 



Let not Ambition mock their useful toil. 
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure ; 

Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
The short and simple annals of the poor.^^ 



GRAY'S ELEGY. 99 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Awaits alike th' inevitable hour. 

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.^^ 

10. 

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault, 
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise. 

Where, through the long-drawn ^^ aisle and fretted vault, 
The ^^ pealing anthem swells the note of praise. 

II. 

Can 2*^ storied urn or animated bust 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 

Can Honor's voice ^^ provoke the silent dust ? 
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death ? 

12. 

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid 

Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire ; 22 

Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd, 
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre : 

13. 

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample '^ page. 
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll ; 

Chill Penury repress'd their noble '^ rage. 
And froze the genial current of the soul. 



100 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

14. 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene, 

The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear;^^ 

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.^^ 



15- 

Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast 
The little tyrant of his fields withstood, 

Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest. 

Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.^^ 



Th' applause of listening senates to command,^^ 
The threats of pain and ruin to despise. 

To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,^^ 
And read their history in a nation's eyes, 

17- 

Their lot forbade : nor circumscrib'd alone 

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confin'd ; 

Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, 
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind. 



18. 

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, 
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame. 

Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride 
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.^ 



GRAY'S ELEGY. . 101 

19. 

Far from the ^^ madding crowd's ignoble strife 
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray ; 

Along the cool, sequester'd vale of life 

They kept the noiseless ^^ tenor of their way. 

20. 

Yet even these bones from insult to protect, 

Some frail memorial still erected nigh, 
With ^ uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd, 

Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.^ 



21. 

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse, 
The place of fame and ^ elegy supply ; 

And many a holy text around she strews. 
That teach the rustic moralist to die. 



22. 

For who, to dumb Forgetfulness a prey, 
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd, 

Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, 
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind ? ^^ 

23- 

On some fond breast the parting soul relies. 
Some pious drops the closing eye requires ; ^"^ 

Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries, 
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires. ^^ 



102 ^ THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

24. 

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonor'd dead, 
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate, 

If chance, by lonely contemplation led. 
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, 

25. 

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, 

" Oft have we seen him at the ^^ peep of dawn 

Brushing with hasty steps the dews away. 
To meet the sun upon the ^^ upland lawn. 

26. 

"There at the foot of yonder nodding beech, 
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, 

His listless length at noontide would he stretch, 
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.*^ 

27. 

" Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn. 
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove ; 

Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn, 
Or craz'd with care, or cross'd in hopeless love. 

28. 

" One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill, 
Along the heath and near his favorite tree ; 

Another came; nor yet beside the rill. 
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. 



GRAY'S ELEGY. 103 

29. 

" The next, with dirges *^ due in sad array, 

Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne. 

Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay 
Grav'd on the stone beneath yon aged thorn." ^^ 

THE EPITAPH. 

30. 

Here rests his head upon the ^* lap of Earth, 
A youth, to Fortune and to Fame unknown : 

Fair Science frown'd not on his humble birth, 
And Melancholy mark'd him for her own. 

31- 

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere. 
Heaven did a recompense as largely send ; 

He gave to Misery all he had, a tear. 

He gain'd from Heaven ('twas all he wish'd) a friend. 

32. 

No farther seek his merits to disclose. 

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, 

(There they alike in trembling hope repose), 
The bosom of his Father and his God. 



104 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

NOTES. 

The Author. 

Thomas Gray, born in Cornhill, London, December 26, 1716, was the 
son of a money scrivener. He was educated at Eton and at Pembroke 
College, Cambridge. In 1742 he took up his residence at Cambridge, 
where he spent the remainder of his life chiefly engaged in study. It is 
said of him that he was master in all departments of human learning 
except mathematics. His poems are not numerous, but they all bear 
the mark of merit. Besides the Elegy, the best known are the Ode to 
Springs the Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College, the Ode to Adver- 
sity, The Progress of Poesy, and The Bard. Gray died on the 30th of 
July, 1 771. His literary and personal pecuharities "are familiar to us," 
says Robert Carruthers, " from the numerous representations and allusions 
of his friends. It is easy to fancy the recluse-poet sitting in his college 
chambers in the old quadrangle of Pembroke Hall. His windows are 
ornamented with mignonette and choice flowers in China vases, but out- 
side may be discerned some iron-work intended to be serviceable as a 
fire-escape, for he has a horror of fire. His furniture is neat and select; 
his books, rather for use than show, are disposed around him. He has 
a harpsichord in the room. In the corner of one of the apartments is a 
trunk containing his deceased mother's dresses, carefully folded up and 
preserved. His fastidiousness, bordering upon efl'eminacy, is visible in 
his gait and manner, in his handsome features and small, well-dressed 
person, especially when he walks abroad and sinks the author and hard 
student in 'the gentleman who sometimes writes for his amusement.' 
He writes always with a crow-quill, speaks slowly and sententiously, and 
shuns the crew of dissonant college revellers, who call him * a prig,' and 
seek to annoy him. Long mornings of study, and nights feverish from 
ill-health, are spent in those chambers; he is often listless and in low 
spirits; yet his natural temper is not desponding, and he delights in 
employment. He has always something to learn or to communicate; 
some sally of humor or quiet stroke of satire for his friends and corre- 
spondents; some note on natural history to enter in his journal; some 
passage of Plato to unfold and illustrate; some golden thought of classic 
inspiration to inlay on his page; some bold image to tone down; some 
verse to retouch and harmonize. His life is, on the whole, innocent and 
happy, and a feehng of thankfulness to the Great Giver is breathed over 
all." 



GRAY'S ELEGY. 105 



The Poem, 



"It may at once be said that it was begun at Stoke in October or 
November, 1742, continued at Stoke immediately after the funeral of 
Gray's aunt, Miss Mary Antrobus, in November, 1749, and finished at 
Cambridge in June, 1750. It may be here remarked as a very singular 
fact that the death of a valued friend seems to have been the stimulus of 
greatest efficacy in rousing Gray to the composition of poetry, and did, 
in fact, excite him to the completion of most of his important poems. He 
was a man who had a very slender hold on life himself, who walked habit- 
ually in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, and whose periods of greatest 
vitality were those in which bereavement proved to him that, melancholy 
as he was, even he had something to lose and to regret." — Edmtuid 
Gosse. 

" Had Gray written nothing but his Elegy, high as he stands, I am not 
sure that he would not stand higher; it is the corner-stone of his glory." 
— Lord Byron. 

I. curfew. Fr. couvre-feu ; couvrir, to cover, and fen, fire. The 
custom in England of ringing a bell at nightfall dates from a very early 
period, although it was probably neither general nor obligatory until the 
time of William the Conqueror. Peshall, in his History of Oxford, says : 
*' The custom of ringing the bell at Carfax every night at eight o'clock was 
by order of King Alfred, the restorer of our University, who ordained that 
all persons at the ringing of that bell should cover up their fires and go 
to bed; which Custom is observed to this day." See Milton, // Penseroso, 

73- — 

" Oft on a plat of rising ground, 
I hear the far-off curfew sound, 
Over some wide-water'd shore, 
Swinging low with sullen roar." 

Compare with Dante, Purgatorio, 8 : — 

" If he doth hear from far away a bell 
That seemeth to deplore the dying day." 

And Milton, Cotnus, 434 : — 

" Stubborn unlaid ghost 
That breaks his chains at curfew time." 

parting. Departing. Compare with Milton, Llymn on the Nativity^ 
18s: — 



" The parting Genius is with sighing sent." 



106 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Also with Scott, Marmion, iii. 13: — 

" Seemed in mine ear a death-peal rung, 
Such as in nunneries they toll 
For some departing sister's soul." 

2. wind. This is generally printed xvinds, but it was not so written 
by Gray. — ploughman. Compare with Burns, Cotter's Saturday Night, 
14: — 

" The toil-worn Cotter frae his labor goes." 

Also with Pope, Pastorals, iii. : — 

" While laboring oxen spent with toil and heat, 
In their loose traces from the fields retreat : 
While curUng smoke from village-tops are seen, 
And fleet shades glide o'er the dusky green." 

3. This line in prose would read: "And a solemn stillness holds all 
the air." 

4. beetle. Compare Shakespeare, Macbeth, iii. 2 : — 

" Ere to black Hecate's summons 
The shard-borne beetle, with his drowsy hums. 
Hath rung night's yawning peal." 

See Lycidas, 28. 

5. reign. Domain: — 

" Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars 
Held undisturbed their ancient reign." 

Alfred Domtnet, Christmas Hymn. 

6. the turf. Compare this, and indeed the entire stanza, with In 
Memoriam, x. 

7. rude. Uncultured. Milton would probably say uncouth; as, 
" uncouth swain," lycidas, 186. 

8. incense-breathing morn. See Milton, /^rr^fl^^'j, 156: — 

" And early, ere the odorous breath of morn 
Awakes the slumbering leaves." 

Also Paradise lost, iv. 641 : — 

" Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet." 

g. clarion. A shrill sounding trumpet. Compare with Paradise 
lost, vii. 443 : — 

" The crested cock whose clarion sounds 
The silent hours." 



G/^AV'S ELEGY. 107 

Also Ha??ilet, i. l : — 

" The cock that is the trumpet to the morn." 

And Kyd's England's Parnassus : — 

" The cheerful cock, the sad night's trumpeter, 
Waiting upon the rising of the sun." 

10. lowly bed. There is no figurative meaning in these words. 

11. ply her evening care. "This is probably the kind of phrase 
which led Wordsworth to pronounce the language of the Elegy unintelligi- 
ble. Compare his own — 

" ' And she I cherished turned her wheel 
Beside an English fire ' " — Hales. 

12. Compare with Burns, Cotters Saturday Night, 21 : — 

" Th' expectant wee things toddlin', stacher thro' 
To meet their dad, wi' fiichterin noise an' glee." 

or climb his knees. Compare with the same, 25 : — 

" The lisping infant prattling on his knee. 
Does a' his weary carking cares beguile." 

Also with Thomson, Liberty, iii. 171 : — 

" His little children climbing for a kiss." 

13. glebe. Turf. Yxovci'LzX.. gleha, q\o^\ — 

" 'Tis mine to tame the stubborn glebe." — Gay. 

14. afield. See Lycidas, 27. 

15. sturdy stroke, '^^t The Shepheards Calender, February : — 

" But to the roote bent his sturdy stroake, 
And made many wounds in the wast Oak." 

16. Burns uses this stanza as an introduction to his Cotter's Saturday 
Night. 

17. Compare with this stanza from the Monody on Queen Caroline 
(1737), written by Gray's friend, Richard West: — 

" Ah me ! what boots us all our boasted power. 
Our golden treasure, and our purple state ; 
They cannot ward the inevitable hour. 
Nor stay the fearful violence of fate." 

Lossing relates the following story of General Wolfe on the eve of the 
battle of Quebec (1759): "At past midnight, when the heavens were 



108 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

hung with black clouds, and the boats were floating silently back with the 
tide to the intended landing-place at the chosen ascent to the Plains of 
Abraham, he repeated in a low tone to the officers around him this touch- 
ing stanza of Gray's Elegy. 'Now, gentlemen,' said Wolfe, ' I would rather 
be the author of that poem than the possessor of the glory of beating the 
French to-morrow.' He fell the next day, and expired just as the shouts 
of victory of the English fell upon his almost unconscious ears." — awaits. 
In prose the first sentence would read, " The inevitable hour awaits alike 
the boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, and all that beauty or wealth 
e'er gave." 

1 8. aisle. Fr. aile ; originally written so in English, and meaning, as 
here, a little wing, or lateral division of the church. Now used to desig- 
nate the alley, or passage-way, into which the pews open. Compare this 
line with Milton, II Peiiseroso, 155: — 

" But let my due feet never fail 
To walk the studious cloister's pale, 
And love the high embowed roof, 
With antique pillars massy proof." 

fretted. Ornamented with frets or interlacing bands. Compare with 
Shakespeare, Hamlet, ii. 2 : — 

" This majestical roof fretted with golden fire." 

19. pealing anthem, ^ce II Pe)2seroso, \6i : — 

" There let the pealing organ blow 
To the full-voiced quire below, 
In service high, and anthem clear." 

20. storied urn. See II Pe user oso, i^g: — 

" And storied windows richly dight." 

animated bust. Life-like bust, or monument. 

21. provoke. From Lat. /rt) and z'oco, to call forth, and here used in 
its original meaning. 

22. Compare with Cowper, Boadicea, -iiZ • — 

" Such the bard's prophetic words, 

Pregnant with celestial fire, 

Bending as he swept the chords 

Of his sweet but awful lyre." 

23. page . . . unroll. Ancient books were in the form of rolls. 
Hence we have volume, from Lat. volvere, to roll. — rich with the spoils 
of time. Compare with Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, i. 13 ; — 



GJ^AV'S ELEGY. 109 \ 

" And then at last, when homeward I shall drive ; 

Rich with the spoils of nature," etc. 

24. rage. Enthusiasm, inspiration. See CoWins, T/ie Passions, 1 10 : — j 

" Thy humblest reed could more prevail, - 

Had more of strength, diviner rage, 1 

Than all which charms this Laggard age." 

25. Compare these two lines with the following passage in Bishop I 
Hall's Contemplations, written more than a hundred years earlier: "There ■ 
is many a rich stone laid up in the bowells of the earth, many a fair pearle 

in the bosom of the sea, that never was seene nor never shall bee." 

26. Compare these two lines with Waller (1650) : — 

" Go, lovely rose, ... \ 

Tell her that's young ; 
And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That hadst thou sprung ■ 
In deserts, where no men abide, 

Thou must have uncommended died." i 

Also with Pope, Rape of the Locke, iv. 158 : — , 

" There kept my charms conceal'd from every eye, 
Like roses, that in deserts bloom and die." 1 

Mitford compares with Chamberlayne's Pharronida (1659) : — ' 

" Like beauteous flowers which vainly waste their scent \ 

Of odours in unhaunted deserts." 

27. This stanza was at first written thus : — 

" Some Village Cato who with dauntless Breast . j 

The little Tyiiint of his Fields withstood ; 
Some mute inglorious Tully here may rest; 
Some Cc^sar guiltless of his Country's Blood." 

For theproper names, Hampden, Milton, Cromwell, consult some English 
history of the seventeenth century. 

28. Hales says: "The great age of Parliamentary oratory was just 
dawning when the Elegy was published. The elder Pitt was already 
famous for his eloquence." 

29. Compare with the following by Tickell : — 

" To scatter blessings o'er the British land," 
or with this by Mrs. Behn : — 

" Ts scattering plenty over all the land." 



no THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

30. Reference is here made to the fawning adulation for great men 
common at that time. In Gray's first copy of the poem, the remaining 
stanzas were as follows : — 

" The thoughtless World to Majesty may bow 
Exalt the brave, & idolize Success 
But more to Innocence their Safety owe 
Than Power & Genius e'er conspir'd to bless 

" And thou, who mindful of the unhonour'd Dead 
Dost in these Notes their artless Tale relate 
By Night & lonely Contemplation led 
To linger in the gloomy Walks of Fate 

" Hark how the sacred Calm, that broods around 
Bids ev'ry fierce tumultuous Passion cease 
In still small Accents whisp'ring from the Ground 
A grateful Earnest of eternal Peace 

" No more with Reason & thyself at Strife 
Give anxious Cares & endless Wishes room 
But thro the cool sequester'd Vale of Life 
Pursue the silent Tenour of thy Doom." 

It will be noticed that the second of these stanzas, with some revisions, is 
retained in the poem (see the sixth stanza, below). Also that the last 
two lines of the fourth (altered) appear at the end of the first stanza, below. 

31. madding. Exciting, disturbed, raging. Compare with Johnson, 
Vanity of Human Wishes, 39: — 

" Let hist'ry tell where rival kings command, 
And dubious title shakes the madded land." 

And with Drummond, Praise of a Solitary Life : — 

" Thrice happy he who by some shady grove 
Far from the clamorous world doth live his own." 

32. tenor of their way. So Beilby Porteus (1731-1808), in his poem 
on Death, says : — 

" The venerable patriarch guileless held 
The tenor of his way." 

33. uncouth rhymes. Untaught, unknown, unlearned. Milton has 
" uncouth cell," " uncouth swain," etc. 

34. Compare with Lycidas, 19-22, 

35. elegy. Hales says: "This was an age much given to elaborate 
epitaphs and elegies. Gray himself had contributed to this funeral litera- 
ture. See also Pope's works, Goldsmith's, etc., and the walls and monu- 



GA'AV'S ELEGY. Ill 

ments of Westminster Abbey, passim. This style of writing still survives 
in country places; but happily even there is growing rarer." 

36. "At the first glance it might seem that to dumb Forge/fulness a 
prey was in apposition to xuho, and the meaning was, ' Who that now lies 
forgotten,' etc.; in which case the second line of the stanza must be closely 
connected with the fourth; for the question of the passage is not 'Who 
ever died?' but 'Who ever died without wishing to be remembered?' 
But in this way of interpreting this difficult stanza (i.) there is compara- 
tively little force in the appositional phrase, and (ii.) there is a certain 
awkwardness in deferring so long the clause (virtually adverbial though 
apparently co-ordinate) in which, as has just been noticed, the point of the 
question really lies. Perhaps therefore it is better to take the phrase to 
dumb Forgetfulness a prey as in fact the completion of the predicate 
resigned, and interpret thus: 'Who ever resigned this life of his with all 
its pleasures and all its pains to be utterly ignored and forgotten? = who 
ever, when resigning it, reconciled himself to its being forgotten?' In this 
case the second half of the stanza echoes the thought of the first half." — 
Hales. 

37. vSee note 44, page 70. Compare with the quotations there given. 

38. So Chaucer in The Reves Tale : — 

" Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken." 
And Tennyson in ATaud, i. 22 : — 

" She is coming, my own, my sweet, 

Were it ever so weary a tread 
My heart would hear her and beat, 

Were it earth in an earthy bed ; 
My dust would hear her and beat, 

Had I lain for a century dead. 
Would start and tremble under her feet, 

And blossom in purple and red." 

39. peep of dawn. Compare with " opening eyelids of the dawn," 
in Lycidas, 26, and see note 13, page 88.- See also Coi/ius, 138: — 

" Ere the blabbing eastern scout. 
The nice morn, on the Indian steep. 
From her cabin'd loop-hole peep." 

And Herrick, To Music, etc. : — 

" Or like those maiden showers 

Which, by the peep of day, do strew 
A baptism o'er the flowers." 

40. upland lawn. See Lycidas, 25. Compare also with Milton 
L' Allegro, 92 : — 



112 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" Sometime with sure delight 
The upland hamlets will invite." 

Milton also speaks of " russet lawns." A lawn was a pasture or grassy 
field. An upland lawn was probably such a field on the hill-slopes, 
although Hales thinks that it is used with reference simply to the country 
in opposition to towns, as the Old English expression " uplondysche 
men," was used to designate countrymen. 

41. This stanza, as at first written, read thus : — 

" Him have we seen the greenwood side along, 
While o'er the heath we hied, our labor done, 
Oft as the wood-lark piped her farewell song. 
With wistful eyes pursue the setting sun." 

Compare it as it now reads with Shakespeare, As You Like Lt, ii. i : — 

" As he lay along 
Under an oak whose antique root peeps out 
Upon the brook that brawls along this road." 

Compare the first two lines with Spenser, Ruins of Rome, 504 : — 

" A great oke drie and dead, 
Whose foote in ground hath left but feeble holde, 
But halfe disbowel'd lies above the ground. 
Shewing her wreathed rootes and naked armes." 

42. due. Proper. Compare with Milton, Zjr?Vrt'.f, 7, "season due." — 
church-way path. See Shakespeare, JMidsimimer AHght's Dream, v. 
2,9: — 

" Now it is the time of night. 

That the graves all gaping wide, 
Every one lets forth his sprite. 

In the church-way paths to glide." 

43. In the original manuscript these lines follow this stanza: — 

" There scatter'd oft, the earliest of the year, 

By hands unseen are show'rs of violets found : 
The redbreast loves to build and warble there, 
And little footsteps lightly print the ground." 

44. lap. See Milton, Paradise Lost, ix. 777 : — 

" How glad would lay me down 
As in my mother's lap." 

Also the same, xi. 535 : — 

" So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop 
Into thy mother's lap." 



ADONAIS 

AN ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF JOHN KEATS 
Author of ^^ Endymion" *^ Hyperion," etc. 

'Acrrrjp wplv jxkv ^Xa/xires ivl ^djoiaiv eQos 

Nuj' 5^ davwv, \d/j.T€LS ecTTre/oos iv (pdi/xevois. — Plato 

By Pe7'cy Bysshe Shelley 
1821 



John Keats died at Ronie, of a conszimption, in his twenty -fourth year, 
on the syth of December, 1820, and 7vas buried in the romantic and 
lonely cemetery of the Protestants in that city, tinder the pyramid ivhich 
is the tomb of Cestins, and the massy zualls and toivers, noiv mouldering 
and desolate, which formed the circuit of ancient Rome. The cemetery 
is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter luith violets and 
daisies. It might make one in love with death to think that one should 
be buried in so sweet a place. 

The genius of the lamented person to zvhose mefuory I have dedicated 
these umvorthy verses was not less delicate and fragile than it zvas 
beautiful ; and where canker-worms abound zvhat wonder if its young 
flower zuas blighted in the bud? The savage criticism on his Endy- 
mion, which appeared in the Quarterly Review, produced the jnost vio- 
lent effect on his susceptible mind. The agitation tints originated ended 
in the rupture of a blood-vessel in the lungs ; a rapid consumption 
ensued ; and the succeeding acknoxvledgments, from more candid critics, 
of the true greatness of his pozvers, were itieffectual to heal the wound 
thus wantonly inflicted. 

The circumstances of the closing scene of poor Keats' s life were not 
made knozvn to me until the Elegy zvas ready for the press. I am. 
given to understand that the zvound zvhich his sejisitive spirit had 
received from the criticism of Endymion was exasperated by the bit- 
ter sense of tmrequited benefits. The poor fellozu seems to have been 
hooted from the stage of life, no less by those on zvhom he had zvasted 
the promise of his genius, than those on zvhom he had lavished his for- 
tune and his care, — From Shelley's Preface. 



atronaig. 



3j«iC 



I weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Oh, weep for Adonais, though our tears 
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head ! 
And thou, sad Hour selected from all years 
To mourn our loss, rouse thy obscure compeers. 
And teach them thine own sorrow ! Say : " With me 
Died Adonais ; till the Future dares 
Forget the Past, his fate and fame shall be 
An echo and a light unto eternity ! " 



II. 

Where wert thou, mighty Mother, when he lay, 
When thy son lay, pierced by the shaft which flies 
In darkness ? where was lorn Urania 
When Adonais died ? With veiled eyes 
'Mid listening Echoes in her paradise 
She sate, while one, with soft enamoured breath, 
Rekindled all the fading melodies 
With which, like flowers that mock the corse beneath, 
He had adorned and hid the coming bulk of Death. 



116 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



III. 



Oh, weep for Adonais — he is dead ! 
Wake, melancholy Mother, wake and weep ! — 
Yet wherefore ? Quench within their burning bed 
Thy fiery tears, and let thy loud heart keep. 
Like his, a mute and uncomplaining sleep ; 
For he is gone where all things wise and fair 
Descend : — oh, dream not that the amorous Deep 
Will yet restore him to the vital air ; 
Death feeds on his mute voice, and laughs at our 
despair. 

IV. 

Most musical of mourners, weep again ! 
Lament anew, Urania ! — he died 
Who was the sire of an immortal strain. 
Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride 
The priest, the slave, and the liberticide. 
Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite 
Of lust and blood ; he went, unterrified. 
Into the gulf of death. But his clear sprite 
Yet reigns o'er earth, the third among the sons of 
light. 

V. 

Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! 
Not all to that bright station dared to climb : 
And happier they their happiness who knew. 
Whose tapers yet burn through that night of time 
In which suns perished. Others more sublime, 
Struck by the envious wrath of man or God, 
Have sunk, extinct in their refulgent prime ; 



AD ON A IS. 117 

And some yet live, treading the thorny road, 
Which leads, through toil and hate, to Fame's serene 
abode. 

VI. 

\ 

But now, thy youngest, dearest one, has perished, .1 

The nursling of thy widowhood, who grew, ] 

Like a pale flower by some sad maiden cherished, ] 

And fed with true love tears instead of dew. , 

Most musical of mourners, weep anew ! ; 

Thy extreme hope, the loveliest and the last, 1 

The bloom whose petals, nipped before they blew, 1 

Died on the promise of the fruit, is waste ; 

The broken lily lies — the storm is overpast. \ 

VII. : 

i 

To that high Capital, where kingly Death i 

Keeps his pale court in beauty and decay, \ 

He came ; and bought, with price of purest breath, \ 
A grave among the eternal. — Come away ! 
Haste, while the vault of blue Italian day 

Is yet his fitting charnel-roof ! while still i 

He lies, as if in dewy sleep he lay. ] 
Awake him not ! surely he takes his fill 

Of deep and liquid rest, forgetful of all ill. ; 

I 

VIII. ] 

He will wake no more, oh, never more ! 

Within the twilight chamber spreads apace s 

The shadow of white Death, and at the door ] 

Invisible Corruption waits to trace 

His extreme way to her dim dwelling-place ; j 



118 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. i 

The eternal Hunger sits, but pity and awe -i 

Soothe her pale rage, nor dares she to deface ' 

So fair a prey, till darkness and the law \ 

Of change shall o'er his sleep the mortal curtain draw. \ 

\ 

■\ 

IX. ' 

I 
Oh, weep for Adonais ! — The quick Dreams, 
The passion-winged ministers of thought, ' 

Who were his flocks, whom near the living streams 
Of his young spirit he fed, and whom he taught ; 

The love which was its music, wander not, — 
Wander no more from kindling brain to brain, \ 

But droop there whence they sprung; and mourn i 
their lot j 

Round the cold heart, where, after their sweet pain, j 

They ne'er will gather strength or find a home again. ; 

X. j 

And one with trembling hands clasps his cold head, \ 

And fans him with her moonlight wings, and cries, ' 

" Our love, our hope, our sorrow, is not dead ; I 

See, on the silken fringe of his faint eyes, ] 

Like dew upon a sleeping flower, there lies \ 

A tear some Dream has loosened from his brain." j 

Lost Angel of a ruined Paradise ! « 

She knew not 'twas her own, — as with no stain j 

She faded, like a cloud which had outwept its rain. ■ 



XI. 

One from a lucid urn of starry dew 

Washed his light limbs as if embalming them 



A DONA IS. 119 

Another dipt her profuse locks, and threw 
The wreath upon him, like an anadem 
Which frozen tears instead of pearls begem ; 
Another in her wilful grief would break 
Her bow and winged reeds, as if to stem 
A greater loss with one which was more weak, 
And dull the barbed fire against his frozen cheek. 



XII. \ 

Another Splendour on his mouth alit, j 

That mouth whence it was wont to draw the breath i 

Which gave it strength to pierce the guarded wit, I 

And pass into the panting heart beneath I 

With lightning and with music : the damp death j 

Quenched its caress upon his icy lips ; \ 

And, as a dying meteor stains a wreath \ 
Of moonlight vapour, which the cold night clips, 
It flushed through his pale limbs, and passed to its 

eclipse. , 

XIII. 

And others came, — Desires and Adorations, ; 

Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies, 

Splendours, and Glooms, and glimmering incarna- j 

tions 

Of Hopes and Fears, and twilight Phantasies ; ^ 

And Sorrow, with her family of Sighs, I 

And Pleasure, blind with tears, led by the gleam \ 

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes, \ 

Came in slow pomp ; — the moving pomp might seem i 
Like pageantry of mist on an autumnal stream. 



120 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. '■ 

\ 

XIV. \ 

All he had loved, and moulded into thought ; 

From shape and hue and odour and sweet sound, ■ 
Lamented Adonais. Morning sought 

Her eastern watch-tower, and her hair unbound, \ 

Wet with the tears which should adorn the ground, \ 
Dimmed the aerial eyes that kindle day ; 

Afar the melancholy Thunder moaned, \ 
Pale Ocean in unquiet slumber lay, 
And the wild Winds flew round, sobbing in their dismay. 

XV. 1 

Lost Echo sits among the voiceless mountains, \ 

And feeds her grief with his remembered lay, •; 

And will no more reply to winds or fountains, ^ 

Or amorous birds perched on the young green spray, i 

Or herdsman's horn, or bell at closing day, \ 

Since she can mimic not his lips, more dear \ 

Than those for whose disdain she pined away i 

Into a shadow of all sounds : — a drear \ 

Murmur, between their songs, is all the woodmen hear. i 

XVI. ; 

Grief made the young Spring wild, and she threw down \ 
Her kindling buds, as if she Autumn were. 

Or they dead leaves ; since her delight is flown, j 

For whom should she have waked the sullen Year } \ 

To Phoebus was not Hyacinth so dear, \ 

Nor to himself Narcissus, as to both \ 

Thou, Adonais ; wan they stand and sere \ 

Amid the faint companions of their youth, \ 

With dew all turned to tears, — odour, to sighing ruth. \ 



ADONAIS. 121 



XVII. 



Thy spirit's sister, the lorn nightingale, 
Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain ; 
Not so the eagle, who like thee could scale 
Heaven, and could nourish in the sun's domain 
Her mighty young with morning, doth complain. 
Soaring and screaming round her empty nest, 
As Albion wails for thee : the curse of Cain 
Light on his head who pierced thy innocent breast, 
And scared the angel soul that was its earthly guest ! 

XVIII. 

Ah woe is me ! Winter is come and gone, 
But grief returns with the revolving year ; 
The airs and streams renew their joyous tone; 
The ants, the bees, the swallows, reappear. 
Fresh leaves and flowers deck the dead Seasons' bier ; 
The amorous birds now pair in every brake. 
And build their mossy homes in field and brere ; 
And the green lizard and the golden snake. 
Like unimprisoned flames, out of their trance awake. 

XIX. 

Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean, 
A quickening life from the Earth's heart has burst. 
As it has ever done, with change and motion. 
From the great morning of the world when first 
God dawned on Chaos. In its stream immersed. 
The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light ; 
All baser things pant with life's sacred thirst. 
Diffuse themselves, and spend in love's delight. 
The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 



122 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



XX. 



The leprous corpse touched by this spirit tender, 
Exhales itself in flowers of gentle breath ; 
Like incarnations of the stars, when splendour 
Is changed to fragrance, they illumine death, 
And mock the merry worm that wakes beneath. 
Nought we know dies : shall that alone which knows 
Be as a sword consumed before the sheath 
By sightless lightning ? Th' intense atom glows 
A moment, then is quenched in a most cold repose. 

XXI. 

Alas ! that all we loved of him should be. 
But for our grief, as if it had not been. 
And grief itself be mortal ! Woe is me ! 
Whence are we, and why are we } of what scene 
The actors or spectators 1 Great and mean 
Meet massed in death, who lends what life must borrow. 
As long as skies are blue and fields are green. 
Evening must usher night, night urge the morrow, 
Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to 
sorrow. 

XXII. 

He will awake no more, oh never more ! 
"Wake thou," cried Misery, ''childless Mother, rise 
Out of thy sleep, and slake in thy heart's core 
A wound more fierce than his, with tears and sighs." 
And all the Dreams that watched Urania's eyes. 
And all the Echoes whom their sister's song 
Had held in holy silence, cried, ''Arise ! " 
Swift as a Thought by the snake Memory stung, 
From her ambrosial rest the fading Splendour sprung. 



AD ON A IS. 123 



XXIII. 



She rose like an autumnal Night, that springs 
Out of the east, and follows wild and drear 
The golden Day, which, on eternal wings, 
Even as a ghost abandoning a bier, 
Had left the Earth a corpse. Sorrow and fear 
So struck, so roused, so rapt, Urania ; 
So saddened round her like an atmosphere 
Of stormy mist ; so swept her on her way, 
Even to the mournful place where Adonais lay. 

XXIV. 

Out of her secret Paradise she sped, 

Through camps and cities rough with stone, and steel 

And human hearts, which to her aery tread 

Yielding not, wounded the invisible 

Palms of her tender feet where'er they fell ; 

And barbed tongues, and thoughts more sharp than 

they. 
Rent the soft form they never could repel, 
Whose sacred blood, like the young tears of May, 
Paved with eternal flowers that undeserving way. 

XXV. 

In the death-chamber for a moment Death, 
Shamed by the presence of that living Might, 
Blushed to annihilation, and the breath 
Revisited those lips, and life's pale light 
Flashed through those limbs so late her dear delight. 
" Leave me not wild and drear and comfortless, 
As silent lightning leaves the starless night ! 



124 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Leave me not! " cried Urania. Her distress 
Roused Death : Death rose and smiled, and met her 
vain caress. 

XXVI. 

" Stay yet a while ! speak to rne once again ! 
Kiss me, so long but as a kiss may live ! 
And in my heartless breast and burning brain, 
That word, that kiss shall all thoughts else survive, 
With food of saddest memory kept alive, 
Now thou art dead, as if it were a part 
Of thee, my Adonais ! I would give 
All that I am, to be as thou now art : — 
But I am chained to Time, and cannot thence depart ! 

XXVII. 

" Oh, gentle child, beautiful as thou wert. 
Why didst thou leave the trodden paths of men 
Too soon, and with weak hands though mighty heart, 
Dare the unpastured dragon in his den } 
Defenceless as thou wert, oh where was then 
Wisdom the mirrored shield, or scorn the spear } 
Or hadst thou waited the full cycle when 
Thy spirit should have filled its crescent sphere, 
The monsters of life's waste had fled from thee like 
deer. 

XXVIII. 

" The herded wolves, bold only to pursue. 
The obscene ravens, clamorous o'er the dead, 
The vultures, to the conqueror's banner true, 
Who feed where Desolation first has fed, 



ADONAIS. 125 

And whose wings rain contagion, — how they fled, 
When, like Apollo, from his golden bow. 
The Pythian of the age one arrow sped 
And smiled ! — The spoilers tempt no second blow. 
They fawn on the proud feet that spurn them lying low. 

XXIX. 

" The sun comes forth, and many reptiles spawn ; 
He sets, and each ephemeral insect then 
Is gathered into death without a dawn, 
And the immortal stars awake again. 
So is it in the world of living men : 
A godlike mind soars forth, in its delight 
Making earth bare and veiling heaven ; and when 
It sinks, the swarms that dimmed or shared its light 
Leave to its kindred lamps the spirit's awful night." 

XXX. 

Thus ceased she : and the Mountain Shepherds came. 
Their garlands sere, their magic mantles rent. 
The Pilgrim of Eternity, whose fame 
Over his living head like heaven is bent, 
An early but enduring monument. 
Came, veiling all the lightnings of his song 
In sorrow. From her wilds lerne sent 
The sweetest lyrist of her saddest wrong, 
And love taught grief to fall like music from his tongue. 

XXXI. 

'Midst others of less note came one frail form, 
A phantom among men, companionless 



126 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES, ; 

As the last cloud of an expiring storm \ 
Whose thunder is its knell. He, as I guess, 

Had gazed on Nature's naked loveliness, , 

Actaeon-like ; and now he fled astray i 

With feeble steps o'er the world's wilderness, j 

And his own thoughts along that rugged way j 

Pursued like raging hounds their father and their prey. | 

XXXTI. ' 

A pard-like Spirit beautiful and swift — ; 

A love in desolation masked — a power : 
Girt round with weakness ; it can scarce uplift 
The weight of the superincumbent hour ; 

It is a dying lamp, a falling shower, J 

A breaking billow ; — even whilst we speak j 

Is it not broken.? On the withering flower \ 

The killing sun smiles brightly : on a cheek ; 
The life can burn in blood, even while the heart may ] 

break. \ 

XXXIII. ' 

His head was bound with pansies over-blown, \ 

And faded violets, white and pied and blue ; \ 

And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, \ 

Round whose rude shaft dark ivy-tresses grew \ 

Yet dripping with the forest's noonday dew, \ 

Vibrated, as the ever-beating heart i 

Shook the weak hand that grasped it. Of that crew j 

He came the last, neglected and apart ; i 

A herd-abandoned deer struck by the hunter's dart. \ 

xxxiv. 

All stood aloof, and at his partial moan j 

Smiled through their tears ; well knew that gentle band \ 



ADONAIS. 127 

Who in another's fate now wept his own ; 
As in the accents of an unknown land 
He sang new sorrow ; sad Urania scanned 
The Stranger's mien, and murmured : '' Who art thou ? " 
He answered not, but with a sudden hand 
Made bare his branded and ensanguined brow. 
Which was Hke Cain's or Christ's — Oh that it should 
be so ! 

XXXV. 

What softer voice is hushed over the dead ? 
Athwart what brow is that dark mantle thrown ? 
What form leans sadly o'er the white death-bed, 
In mockery of monumental stone. 
The heavy heart heaving without a moan ? 
If it be he, who, gentlest of the wise, 
Taught, soothed, loved, honoured the departed one, 
Let me not vex with inharmonious sighs 
The silence of that heart's accepted sacrifice. 

XXXVI. 

Our Adonais has drunk poison — oh 
What deaf and viperous murderer could crown 
Life's early cup with such a draught of woe t 
The nameless worm would now itself disown : 
It felt, yet could escape, the magic tone 
Whose prelude held all envy, hate, and wrong, 
But what was howling in one breast alone, 
Silent with expectation of the song 
Whose master's hand is cold, whose silver lyre unstrung. 

XXXVII. 

Live thou, whose infamy is not thy fame ! 
Live ! fear no heavier chastisement from me, 



128 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

I 

Thou noteless blot on a remembered name ! ■ 

But be thyself, and know thyself to be ! \ 

And ever at thy season be thou free '] 

To spill the venom when thy fangs o'erflow : ■ 

Remorse and self-contempt shall cling to thee ; ■ ■ 

Hot shame shall burn upon thy secret brow, ' 
And like a beaten hound tremble thou shalt — as now. 



XXXVIII. 

Nor let us weep that our delight is fled 
Far from those carrion kites that scream below. 
He wakes or sleeps with the enduring dead ; 
Thou canst not soar where he is sitting now. 
Dust to the dust ! but the pure spirit shall flow 
Back to the burning fountain whence it came, 
A portion of the Eternal, which must glow 
Through time and change, unquenchably the same. 
Whilst thy cold embers choke the sordid hearth of 
shame. 

XXXIX. 

Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not sleep — 
He hath awakened from the dream of life. 
'Tis we, who, lost in stormy visions, keep 
With phantoms an unprofitable strife. 
And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife 
Invulnerable nothings. We decay 
Like corpses in a charnel ; fear and grief 
Convulse us and consume us day by day. 
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living 
clay. 



ADONAIS. 129 



XL. 



He has outsoared the shadow of our night. 
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain, 
And that unrest which men miscall delight, 
Can touch him not and torture not again. 
From the contagion of the world's slow stain 
He is secure, and now can never mourn 
A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain ; 
Nor, when the spirit's self has ceased to burn. 
With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn. 

XLI. 

He lives, he wakes — 'tis Death is dead, not he; 
Mourn not for Adonais. — Thou young Dawn, 
Turn all thy dew to splendour, for*from thee 
The spirit thou lamentest is not gone ! 
Ye caverns and ye forests, cease to moan ! 
Cease ye faint flowers and foimtains, and thou Air 
Which like a morning veil thy scarf hadst thrown 
O'er the abandoned Earth, now leave it bare 
Even to the joyous stars which smile on its despair! 

XLII. 

He is made one with Nature. There is heard 
His voice in all her music, from the moan 
Of thunder, to the song of night's sweet bird : 
He is a presence to be felt and known 
In darkne.ss and in light, from herb and stone, 
Spreading itself where'er that Power may move 
Which has withdrawn his being to its own. 
Which wields the world with never wearied love, 
Sustains it from beneath, and kindles it above. 



130 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

XLIII. \ 

He is a portion of the loveliness ' 

Which once he made more lovely : he doth bear ; 

His part, while the one Spirit's plastic stress I 

Sweeps through the dull, dense world ; compelling there | 

All new successions to the forms they wear; \ 

Torturing th' unwilling dross that checks its flight ' 
To its own likeness, as each mass may bear ; 
And bursting in its beauty and its might 

From trees and beasts and men into the heavens' light. ; 

XLIV. 

The splendours of the firmament of time \ 

May be eclipsed, but are extinguished not : 1 

Like stars to their appointed height they climb, -j 

And death is a low mist which cannot blot ■ 

The brightness it may veil. When lofty thought i 

Lifts a young heart above its mortal lair, • 
And love and life contend in it, for what 

Shall be its earthly doom, the dead live there, \ 

And move like winds of light on dark and stormy air. \ 

XLV. 

The inheritors of unfulfilled renown \ 

Rose from their thrones, built beyond mortal thought, 
Far in the unapparent. Chatterton 
Rose pale, his solemn agony had not 
Yet faded from him ; Sidney, as he fought 
And as he fell, and as he lived and loved, 
Sublimely mild, a spirit without spot, ; 

Arose; and Lucan, by his death approved; — ■ 

Oblivion as they rose shrank like a thing reproved. \ 

\ 



ADONAIS. 131 



XL VI. 



And many more, whose names on earth are dark 
But whose transmitted effluence cannot die 
So long as fire outHves the parent spark, 
Rose, robed in dazzUng immortahty. 
''Thou art become as one of us," they cry; 
" It was for thee yon kingless sphere has long 
Swung blind in unascended majesty. 
Silent alone amid an heaven of song. 
Assume thy winged throne, thou Vesper of our throng! " 

XLVII. 

Who mourns for Adonais ? oh, come forth, 
Fond wretch, and know thyself and him aright. 
Clasp with thy panting soul the pendulous earth ; 
As from a centre, dart thy spirit's light 
Beyond all worlds, until its spacious might 
Satiate the void circumference : then shrink 
Even to a point within our day and night ; 
And keep thy heart light, lest it make thee sink 
When hope has kindled hope, and lured thee to the 
brink. 

XLVIII. 

Or go to Rome, which is the sepulchre, 
Oh, not of him, but of our joy. 'Tis nought 
That ages, empires, and religions, there 
Lie buried in the ravage they have wrought ; 
For such as he can lend — they borrow not 
Glory from those who made the world their prey ; 
And he is gathered to the kings of thought 
Who waged contention with their times' decay, 
And of the past are all that cannot pass away. 



132 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



XLIX. 



Go thou to Rome — at once the paradise, \ 

The grave, the city, and the wilderness : '\ 

And where its wrecks Hke shattered mountains rise, J 

And flowering weeds and fragrant copses dress 
The bones of Desolation's nakedness, ' 

Pass, till the Spirit of the spot shall lead \ 

Thy footsteps to a slope of green access, 
Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead 
A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread, 



And grey walls moulder round, on which dull Time 
Feeds, like slow fire upon a hoary brand ; 

And one keen pyramid with wedge sublime, j 

Pavilioning the dust of him who planned ^ 

This refuge for his memory, doth stand \ 

Like flame transformed to marble ; and beneath j 

A field is spread, on which a newer band j 

Have pitched in Heaven's smile their camp of death, ] 



Welcoming him we lose with scarce extinguished breath. 



LI. 

Here pause. These graves are all too young as yet 
To have outgrown the sorrow which consigned 
Its charge to each ; and if the seal is set 
Here on one fountain of a mourning mind, 
Break it not thou ! too surely shalt thou find 
Thine own well full, if thou returnest home, 
Of tears and gall. From the world's bitter wind 
Seek shelter in the shadow of the tomb. 
What Adonais is, why fear we to become ? 



AD ON A IS. 133 



LII. 



The One remains, the many change and pass ; 
Heaven's light for ever shines, earth's shadows fly ; 
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
Until Death tramples it to fragments. — Die, 
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek ! 
Follow where all is fled ! — Rome's azure sky, 
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words are weak 
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. 

LIII. 

Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart t 
Thy hopes are gone before : from all things here 
They have departed ; thou shouldst now depart ! 
A light is past from the revolving year. 
And man, and woman ; and what still is dear 
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. 
The soft sky smiles — the low wind whispers near : 
'Tis Adonais calls ! Oh, hasten thither ! 
No more let life divide what death can join together. 

LIV. 

That light whose smile kindles the universe. 
That beauty in which all things work and move, 
That benediction which the eclipsing curse 
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love 
Which through the web of being blindly wove 
By man and beast and earth and sky and sea. 
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of 
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me, 
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. 



134 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

LV. 

The breath whose might I have invoked in song 
Descends on me ; my spirit's bark is driven 
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng 
Whose sails were never to the tempest given ; 
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven ! 
I am borne darkly, fearfully afar ! 
Whilst, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, 
The soul of Adonais, like a star, 
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. 



NOTES. 

The Author. 

Percy Bysshe Shelley was the son of Sir Timothy Shelley, and was 
born at Field Place, Sussex, August 4, 1792. At the age of eighteen he 
was sent to Oxford University, but having written and published a pam- 
phlet in defence of atheism, he was expelled before completing half his 
course. In 1814 he wrote Queen Mab, his first long poem. This was 
followed in 181 5 by Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, and in 181 7 by 
The Revolt of Islam. In 1818 he went to Italy and resided successively 
in Rome, Venice, and Pisa. There he produced the most important of 
his works: the two (\x'^iVi\2A, Proniethetis Unboimd zxvd. The Ceiici ; also 
The Witch of Atlas, Epipsychidion, Adonais, and Hellas. On the 8th of 
April, 1822, he was drowned while attempting to cross the Gulf of Spezia 
in a boat. In compliance with the quarantine laws of Italy, his body was 
burned on the shore. His ashes were deposited in the Protestant ceme- 
tery at Rome, near the grave of Keats. 

The Poem. 

Adonais was written at Pisa, Italy, in May, 1 82 1. "There is much in 
Adonais,''^ says Mrs. Shelley, " which seems now more applicable to Shelley 
himself than to the young and gifted poet whom he mourned. The poetic 
view he takes of death, and the lofty scorn he displays towards his calufn- 



ADONAIS. 135 

niators, are as a prophecy on his own destiny when received among 
immortal names, and the poisonous breath of critics has vanished into 
emptiness before the fame he inherits." 

" Adonais must rank among the most perfect of Shelley's poems for 
symmetry of design, united with rich elaboration of details," says Tod- 
hunter. " He has here done what Keats himself counselled him to do, — 
filled every rift of his subject with ore," 

** It presents Shelley's qualities in a form of even and sustained beauty, 
brought within the sphere of the dullest apprehensions. Shelley dwells 
upon the art of the poem; and this, perhaps, is what at first sight will 
strike the student most." 

R. H, Hutton describes the poem as " a shimmer of beautiful regret, 
full of arbitrary though harmonious and delicate fancies." 

There is reason to believe that Shelley regarded Adonais as his master- 
piece. " I confess," says he, " I should be surprised if that poem were 
born to an oblivion." "The Adonais,''' he writes to a friend, "is the least 
imperfect of my compositions." To another he says, " It is a highly 
wrought piece of art, and perhaps better, in point of composition, than 
anything I have written." To another, " It is absurd in any review to 
criticise Adonais, and still more to pretend that the verses are bad." And 
again, " I know what to think of Adonais, but what to think of those who 
confound it with the many bad poems of the day, I know not." 

The Title. 

Adonais. This name was probably suggested to Shelley by Bion's 
Lament for Adonis, of which it is in some parts an imitation. " Dr. Fur- 
nivall has suggested to me," says Rossetti, " that Adonais is Shelley's 
variant of Adonias, the women's yearly mourning for Adonis" (see note i, 
page 30). 

'Aa-TTjp irplv K. T. X. This distich from Plato is elsewhere translated 
by Shelley in the following lines To Stella : — 

" Thou wert the Morning Star among the living, 
Ere thy fair light had fled ; — 
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving 
New splendour to the dead." 

The Introduction. 

John Keats died in February, 1821, — the day being given differently 
by. different authors, as the 21st, 23d, 24th, or 27th, — and not on the 
27th of December, 1820, as stated in Shelley's Preface. He was not what 



136 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

we would call an intimate friend of Shelley's, nor had his earlier poems 
been at all acceptable to the latter. But his fragment of Hyperion had 
given great pleasure to Shelley, who declared that he considered it " as 
second to nothing that was ever produced by a writer of the same years." 
It is not probable that the "savage criticism" of Elndymion in the 
Quarterly Reviezv did much, if anything, towards hastening the death of 
the young poet who was already predisposed to consumption. 

" He was accompanied to Rome," says Shelley, in concluding his 
Preface, " and attended in his last illness by Mr. Severn, a young artist 
of the highest promise, who, I have been informed, 'almost risked his own 
life, and sacrificed every prospect, to unwearied attendance upon his dying 
friend.' Had I known these circumstances before the completion of my 
poem, I should have been tempted to add my feeble tribute of applause 
to the more soHd recompense which the virtuous man finds in the recol- 
lection of his own motives. Mr. Severn can dispense with a reward from 
* such stuff as dreams are made of.' His conduct is a golden augury of 
the success of his future career — may the unextinguished Spirit of his 
illustrious friend animate the creations of his pencil, and plead against 
Oblivion for his name ! " 

Of Shelley's Preface to the poem, I have given only a part, omitting 
that portion in which he launches into an invective against the critics in 
the Quarterly Review, — a paragraph which adds no lustre to its author's 
fame, and which can be of but little interest to the readers of Adonais. 
"The fact is," says Todhunter, " that this preface was a somewhat botched- 
up affair. It is evident from the first sentence, and the cancelled passages 
that remain, that Shelley intended to have written a more fitting introduc- 
tion to the poem, vindicating Keats's claim to a place among the great 
poets of the day; and it is also evident that the story, so derogatory to 
Keats, of his having died of a criticism, threw a somewhat lurid light over 
his champion's imagination. The false story struck a false chord of feehng 
in Shelley's mind." 

Stanza I. 

1. Compare this line with the first line of Bion's Lament for Adonis 
(see pages 21 and 24). Also compare the whole of the first stanza of 
Mrs. Browning's version of the Lament, with the whole of this stanza. 

Stanza II. 

2. Where wert thou? See The Sorro-v of Daphnis, 3; also Lycidas, 
50-55» ^^^ "ote 3, page 14. — mighty Mother. Urania. Shelley addresses 
Urania as the heavenly Venus, the Aphrodite Urania or spirit of eternal 



A DONA IS. 137 

love and beauty. There were two Uranias, the Muse Urania and Aphro- 
dite Urania. Shelley does not seem to have had in mind the exact distinc- 
tion between them. Although in this passage and in some others which 
follow he clearly intends reference to the latter, he addresses her in the 
fourth stanza as "most musical of mourners," as if he meant the former. 
It is the Muse Urania whom Milton invokes in Paradise Lost, vii. 7 : — 

" Heavenly-born 
Before the hills appear'd, or fountain flow'd, 
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse. 
Wisdom, thy sister, and with her didst play 
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleas'd 
With thy celestial song." 

Tennyson, in In Memoriam, 37 (which see), also refers to the Muse. 
But in The Princess, to the Aphrodite Urania : — 

" The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 
And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung 
And raised the blinding bandage from his eyes." 

There is a great contrast between Urania, the patroness of si)iritual love, 
and the sensuous Venus (Aphrodite Pandemos) of Bion's Lament, yet 
Shelley's imitation of the Greek idyl is very apparent. 

3. pierced by the shaft which flies in darkness. Bion speaks of 
the thigh of Adonis " pierced by a tusk." The shaft which flies in dark- 
ness is death. In Psalms xci. 6, it is called "the pestilence that walketh 
in darkness." Some critics understand the allusion here to be to the 
savage attack made anonymously upon Keats in the Quarterly Review. 
But this view seems to be scarcely warranted by the context. 

Stanza III, 

2. wake and weep. Compare again with Bion's Lament for Adonis, 
"Sleep no more, Venus; rise, wretched goddess," etc. See also note 2, 
page 31. "A hostile reviewer," says Rossetti, "might have been expected 
to indulge in one of the most familiar of cheap jokes, and to say that 
Urania had naturally fallen asleep over Keats's poems; but I am not 
aware that any critic of Adonais did actually say this." 

7. amorous Deep. Another metaphor meaning Death. Compare 
Romeo and Juliet, v. 3, 102 : — 

" Shall I believe 
That unsubstantial Death is amorous. 
And that the lean abhorred monster keeps 
Thee here in darkness to be his paramour ? " 



138 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Shelley may have in mind the line in Bion's Lament for Adonis (line 19, 
page 24), " Persephone does not release him," the amorous Persephone 
being the queen of the dead. 

Stanza IV. 

3. the Sire. John Milton, author oi Paradise Lost. 

9. the third among the sons of light. It is not entirely certain who 
would have been named by Shelley as the first and second, but perhaps 
the following passage from his Defence of Poetry will make it sufficiently 
clear: " Homer was the first and Dante the second epic poet; that is, the 
second epic poet, the series of whose creations bore a defined and intelli- 
gible relation to the knowledge and sentiment and religion of the age in 
which he lived, and of the ages which followed it, developing itself in 
correspondence with their development. . . . Milton was the third epic 
poet." A similar idea is expressed by Dryden : — 

" Three poets in three distant ages born, 
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn. 
The first in loftiness of thought surpass'd ; 
The next in majesty ; in both the last. 
The force of nature could no further go ; 
To make a third, she join'd the former two." 

Stanza V. 

Hales says : "This is a very obscure stanza. It seems to mean : not all 
poets have essayed such lofty flights as Milton, i.e. attempted Epic poetry; 
but some have wisely taken a lower level, i.e. attempted Lyric poetry, 
and are still remembered as Lyric poets, as, for instance, Gray or Burns; 
others, attempting a middle flight, have been cut off in the midst of their 
work, as Keats and Spenser, whom, — 

" ' Ere he ended his melodious song 

An host of angels flew the clouds among 
And rapt this swan from his attentive mates 
To make him one of their associates 
In Heaven's faire quire,' 

Others yet live, of whom nothing definite can be said, e.g. Shelley himself, 
and Byron." To these we might add Wordsworth and Coleridge. 

Stanza VI. 

3. by some sad maiden cherished. See Keats's poem, Isabella, or 
the Pot of Basil : — 



A DONA IS. 139 

" And so she ever fed it with thin tears, 
Whence thick, and green, and be.iutitul it grew, 
So that it smelt more bahny than its peers 
Of Basil-tufts in Florence." 

9. The broken lily. Compare Shakespeare, King Henry VIII., 
V.3: — 

" A most unspotted lily shall she pass 
To the ground, and all the world shall mourn her." 

Stanza VII. 

I. high capital. Rome. See Byron, Childe Harold'' s Pilgrimage, 
iv. 78 : — 

" O Rome ! my country ! city of the soul ! 
. . . Come and see 
The cypress, hear the owl, and plod your way 
O'er steps of broken thrones and temples, ye ! 
Whose agonies are evils of a day — 
A world is at our feet as fragile as our clay." 

— the eternal. The illustrious dead of mighty Rome, which is itself 
called the " eternal city." 

7. as if in dewy sleep he lay. Compare with the lament for 
Adonis (page 23) : " And though a corpse he is beautiful, a beautiful 
corpse as it were sleeping." The resemblance of Death to Sleep is hinted 
at by Shelley in the opening lines of his first long poem, Queen Mab : — 

" How wonderful is Death, — 
Death and his brother Sleep ! " 

But this idea was probably suggested by the beautiful passage in Homer's 
Iliad, xiv., beginning thus : " Then Hera came to Lemnos, the city of 
godlike Thoas. There she met Sleep, the brother of Death," etc. 

Stanza VIII. 

3. shadow of white Death. So, in Job x. 21 : "The land of dark- 
ness and the shadow of death"; and in Psalms xxiii. 4: "Yea, though 
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." In the third line 
below, Shelley calls corruption the " eternal Hunger." The grave, accord- 
ing to Solomon {Proverbs xxx. 16), is the first of "three things that are 
never satisfied, yea, of four things that say not It is enough." — His 
extreme way, i.e. " Adonais's last journey." — her, i.e. corruption's. — 
dim dwelling-place. The grave. 



140 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



Stanza IX. 



3. flocks. Shelley here falls into the pastoral strain. Adonais, like 
Bion (see page 39) and Lycidas, becomes a shepherd, a keeper of flocks, 
a herdsman. The Dreams — Ministers of Thought — were Adonais's poetic 
imaginings. See Wordsworth, Peele Castle, etc. : — 

" The light that never was on sea or land, 
The consecration and the Poet's dream." 

Stanza X. 

I. And one. Compare the ministration of the Dreams, as described 
in this and the following stanza, with the mourning of the Loves in the 
Lament for Adonis (page 24), ending with the sentence, "and another 
behind him is fanning Adonis with his wings." 

3. not dead. Compare with Lycidas, 166; also with the Monriifidl 
Lay of Clorinda : — 

" Ah ! no : it is not dead, ne can it die, 
But lives for aie, in blisfuU Paradise." 

— Lost Angel. The faded dream. — of a ruined Paradise. Of the dead 
poet's mind. 

9. faded, like a cloud, etc. See Keats's Endymion : — 
" Therein 
A melancholy spirit might win 
Oblivion, and melt out his essence fine 
Into the winds." 

Stanza XL 

1. starry dew. It was formerly supposed that the dew was distilled 
from the stars. Compare this entire sentence with the lenient for Adonis 
(page 24) : " Another is carrying water in golden ewers, and a third is 
bathing his thighs." 

3. clipped her profuse locks. So the Loves, weeping for Adonis, 
"had their locks shorn" for him. See page 24, also note 17, page 35. 
Accent the word profuse on the first syllable. — The wreath. This 
cannot mean a wreath made of the "profuse locks." Is it not rather the 
laurel wreath, meed of poets, which had fallen from his head and is now 
thrown aimlessly upon him? I hazard this as a conjecture. 

7. break her bow and winged reeds. So of the Loves (see page 
24), "one was trampling on his arrows, another on his bow, and another 
was breaking his well-feathered quiver." See note 18, page 35. Com- 
pare with the Countess of Pembroke's Dolefull I. ay of Clorinda : — 



ADONAIS. 141 

" Breake now your gyiionds, O ye shepheards lasses, 
Sith the fair flowre which them adornd is gon." 

■ — stem. Oppose; set over against. 

9. barbed fire. The flaming tips of the winged reeds mentioned 
above. Figuratively, the poetic fire of the winged messengers of thought. 
— frozen cheek. See " frozen tears," only four lines above. 

Stanza XII. 
I. splendour. Poetic inspiration, or Dream. 

Stanza XIII. 

I. Others came. Compare with the Sorroiv of Daphnis, page lO, line 
2, the passage beginning, "Then came those who tend the kine," etc. 
Also with Lament for Bion, page 40, line 9, beginning, " Apollo himself 
lamented," etc. Also with Lycidas, the passages referring to the coming 
of Triton, Camus, St. Peter, etc. See note 8, page 16. 

Stanza XIV. 

4. her hair unbound. It is questionable whether Shelley really meant 
anything by the hair of Morning, or whether this passage is simply an 
imitation of the lines in the Lament for Adonis (page 25) : — 

" And the poor Aphrodite with tresses unbound, 
All dishevell'd," etc. 

Could he have meant the morning mists, or foggy exhalations, which, 
while they ought to have fallen upon the ground in the form of dew, 
remained suspended in the air, and dimmed the light of the sun's rays? 
In representing the grief of inanimate nature, — morning, thunder, the 
ocean, echo, etc., — for the dead Adonais, Shelley but imitates the older 
poets. See the Lament for Adonis^ page 22, where the mountains, the 
rivers, and the oaks are said to weep; also the Lament for Bion, page 39, 
where the mourners are the rivers, the groves, and the flowers. 

Stanza XV. 

I. lost Echo. Compare with Moschus, Lament for Bion: "And 
Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent," etc. (see page 40). Also 
with Adonis, page 22 : " And Echo cried in response," etc. 

5. bell at closing day. See Gray's Elegy, i; also note i, page 107. 
In this stanza the poet succeeds in presenting to the mind a true picture 
of sounds. 



142 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Stanza XVI. 

I. threw down her kindling buds. See Lament for Bion, line 15, 
page 40. Also note 16, page 34, and Lycidas, 134, and the account of 
Balder on page 30. 

5. Hyacinth. See note 2, page 44. — Narcissus. Ovid relates how 
Narcissus fell in love with his ov^^n shadow reflected in a fountain, and, 
having pined away because he could not kiss it, was changed into the 
flower that bears his name. Shelley here falls into some confusion, mixing 
up in the same connection references to both the flowers themselves and 
the mythological personages from whom they derived their names. 

Stanza XVII. 

I. lorn nightingale. See Keats's Ode to a Nightingale : — 

" Forlorn ! the word is like a bell 
To toll me back from thee to my sole self." 

See Lament for Bion, 11, also note 3, page 45, and note 56 on "the pore 
turtle," page 71. 

7. Albion wails for thee. See the Motirning Muse of The sty lis : 
" Thou wouldst have heard the cry that wofull England made." See also 
LMuient for Bion : " Every famous city laments thee, and every town," 
Albion is the ancient name for England, so called from the early inhabi- 
tants, the Albiones. An old legend relates that it was so called after 
Albion, the giant son of Neptune, who was its discoverer and first king. 
Another explanation of the name is that it is derived from Latin albiis, 
white, with reference to the white chalk cliffs on the southern coast, 
some of which are visible from France. It is a wide stretch of the 
imagination to suppose that England really lamented the death of Keats. 

7. curse of Cain. See Genesis \n. ii. See also Shelley's Preface to 
the poem, where in reference to the supposed author of the criticism in 
the Quarterly Review, he exclaims : " Miserable man ! you, one of the 
meanest, have wantonly defaced one of the noblest specimens of the work- 
manship of God. Nor shall it be your excuse that, murderer as you are, 
you have spoken daggers, but used none." See also Lament for Bion : 
" What mortal was so cruel that he could mix poison for thee? " 

Stanza XVIII. 

I. Compare this and the following stanza with the Lament for Bion, 
lines 8-15, page 43. Also with the Shepheards Calender, November : — 



ADONAIS. 143 

" Whence is it, that the flouret of the field doth fade, 
And lyeth buried long in Winters bale ; 
Yet, soone as Spring his mantle hath displayde. 
It floureth fresh as it should never fayle ? 
But thing of eartli that is of most availe 
As vertues branch and beauties bud, 
Reliven not for any good." 

— But grief returns with the revolving year. See the Lament for 
Adonis: "Thou must wail again, and weep again next year." Shelley 
now goes on to describe the coming of spring, ah-eady alluded to in XVI., 
above. — brere. Briar. — God dawned on Chaos. See Genesis i. 

Stanza XX. 

3. Like incarnations of the stars. See Longfellow's poem on 
Flowers, 5 : — 

" Stars they are wherein we read our history. 

Everywhere about us they are glowing — 
Some like stars, to tell us Spring is born." 

The literal meaning of iticartialion is a clothing or embodiment in flesh. 
Shelley certainly did not mean that flowers are like stars clothed in flesh, 
but rather that they are like stars brought down to earth. — Nought we 
know dies. Forms and conditions change, but nothing is annihilated. 
Even " the leprous corpse " — the loathsome body of decay — " touched 
by this spirit tender," of Spring and love's delight, " exhales itself in 
flowers of gentle breath." Shall then the mind alone — "that alone 
which knows" — perish, while matter continues to exist? — 

" The stream flows, 
The wind blows. 
The cloud fleets, 
The heart beats. 

Nothing will die, \ 

Nothing will die ; 
All things will change 
Through eternity." — Tennyson. 

8. sightless. Viewless, invisible, unseen. As in Hamlet, i. 5 : — 

" Wherever in your sightless substances 
You wait on Nature's mischief! " 

— th' intense atom. The mind; the intellectual part of our being. 
The question is still implied in this sentence, as, " Shall th' intense atom 
glow?" etc. 



144 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



Stanza XXI. 



I. all we loved of him. His mind; his real self as apart from his 
body. — who lends what life must borrow. Death is the great fact. 
Everything is derived from it, and must return to it again. " Dust thou 
art and unto dust thou must return." 

Stanza XXII. 

I. childless Mother. Urania. See note 2, above. Compare this 
stanza with the opening lines in Lament for Adonis. 

4. a wound more fierce. See Lament for Adonis, iii. 3 (page 25). 
Observe the appropriateness here of these words spoken by Misery: — 

" Shadow-vested Misery 
Coy, unwilling, silent bride, 
Mourning in thy robe of pride, 
Desolution deified." — Shelley, Misery. 

8. snake Memory. Shelley had a peculiar sympathy for snakes, and 
one of the pets of his childhood was a harmless old serpent that had long 
frequented his father's garden, and was finally accidentally killed by the 
gardener's scythe. No disagreeable meaning must therefore be applied 
to the expression " snake memory." 

Stanza XXIII. 

I. She rose, etc. Compare this stanza with Lainent for Adonis, in. 
5-15 (page 26). This and the following stanzas describe the hastening 
of Urania from her own " secret Paradise " to the death chamber. 

Stanza XXIV. 

5. Palms of her tender feet. Soles. This use of the word ^a/ms is 
peculiar to Shelley : — 

" Our feet now, every palm. 
Are sandalled with calm." — Prometheus Unbound, iv. 

8. blood like the young tears of May. See Lament for Adonis, 
page 17, hne 23. 

Stanza XXVI. 

I. "Stay yet a while," etc. Compare this stanza with the Lament 
for Adonis, v. (page 26), beginning with, — 

" Stay, Adonis ! unhappy one, stay ! " 



ADONAIS. 145 

3. heartless breast. That is, breast from which the heart has been 
crushed by sorrow. 

g. I am chained to Time, etc. Compare with Lament for Adonis, 
page 23 : " Wretched I hve, and am a goddess, and cannot follow thee." 

Stanza XXVIL 

4. unpastured dragon. The savage critic. So Venus to Adonis: 
"Nay, why, rash one, didst tliou hunt?" 

6. Wisdom the mirrored shield. The shield of discretion which, 
while protecting from assault, shows the weak points of the enemy. The 
reference is probably to the shield of Perseus, into which he looked while 
attacking the Gorgon. — scorn the spear. The magic spear, familiar 
in both ancient and mediaeval romances, whose lightest touch overcomes 
the enemy. 

9. monsters of life's waste. They are specified in the following 
stanza. The poet thus characterizes the critics whose adverse judgments 
he believed to have hastened Keats's death. 

Stanza XXVIII. 

7. The Pythian of the age. Byron. The one arrow which he sped 
was the poem, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, in which he gave 
answer to the writers who had severely criticized his own early poetry. 
Apollo was called the Pythian because he attacked and slew the huge 
serpent Python which infested the neighborhood of Krissa. Hence the 
application of the title to Byron, who made an onslaught upon the serpents 
of the literary press. Shelley has probably in mind the famous statue of 
Apollo Belvedere, representing the god in the act of shooting the Python 
with an arrow from his bow. Byron had just written of this statue : — 

" Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 
The god of life, and poesy, and light — 
The sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow 
All radiant from his triumph in the fight. 

Chi Id e Harold, iv. 161. 

Stanza XXX. 

2. Compare this line with Lycidas, 104, 105. The "uncouth swain" 
{Lycidas, 192) had also a mantle — "blue." The mountain shepherds, 
as explained in the lines which follow, are the poet friends of Keats. 
Observe the recurrence again to the imagery of pastoral poetry. 

3. Pilgrim of Eternity. Byron was so called because of his famous 



146 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

poem, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, of which he himself was the acknowl- 
edged hero. 

7. In sorrow. Byron does not seem to have felt much sorrow for 
Keats. This is what he wrote about his death : — 

"John Keats — who was killed off by one critique 
Just as he really promised something great, 
If not intelligible — without Greek 

Contrived to talk about the Gods of late, 
Much as they might have been supposed to speak. 

Poor fellow ! his was an untoward fate ! 
'Tis strange the mind, that fiery particle, 

Should let itself be snuff'd out by an article." — Don Juan, xi. 
And again : — 

" ' Who killed John Keats? " 
' I,' says the Quarterly, 
So savage and Tartarly ; 
' 'Twas one of my feats.' " 

7. lerne. Ireland. The sweetest lyrist was Thomas Moore, author of 
Irish Melodies, National Airs, etc. By " her saddest wrong," Shelley 
probably refers to the suppression of the rebellion of 1803. See many of 
the songs in the above-mentioned collections. " Whether Moore ever 
showed the faintest interest in or grief for Keats, I know not." — W. M. 
Rossetti. 

Stanza XXXI, 

I. one frail Form. The reference in this and two stanzas following 
is to Shelley himself. — Actaeon-like. Actason was a huntsman, who, 
having accidently surprised Artemis bathing, was changed by that goddess 
into a stag, and was torn to pieces by his own hounds. " By this expres- 
sion," says Rossetti, " Shelley apparently means that he had over-boldly 
tried to fathom the depths of things and of mind, but, baffled and dismayed 
in the effort, suffered, as a man living among men, by the very tension 
and vividness of his thoughts, and their daring in expression." Shelley 
himself says: "As a man I shrink from notice and regard; the ebb and 
flow of the world vexes me : I desire to be left in peace. Persecution, 
contumely, and calumny have been heaped upon me in profuse measure." 

Stanza XXXIII. 

9. herd-abandoned deer. See Hamlet, iii. 2 : — 

" Wliy, let the stricken deer go weep, 
The hart ungalled play ; 



A DONA IS. 147 

For some must watch, while some must sleep — 
So runs the world away." 

Compare also with Merchant of Venice, iv. i : — 

" I am a tainted wether of the tlock, 
Meetest for death." 

Pansies represent thought or memory; violets, modesty; cypress, mourn- 
ing; ivy, friendship. 

Stanza XXXIV. 

3. wept his own. Was this a prediction of Shelley's own early death? 
Keats died at the age of twenty-five. The next year Shelley was drowned 
at the age of thirty. The latter had more than once predicted that he 
would die young — an unknown land. A land unknown to the Greek 
goddess Urania Aphrodite, — a new sorroiv to her also. 

9. like Cain's or Christ's. Branded like Cain's, — the mark of 
reprobation; bleeding like Christ's, — the mark of persecution. This is 
a possible explanation of this phrase, but it is hard to understand Shelley's 
exact meaning. " The coupling together of the names of Cain and Christ 
in this stanza," says Rossetti, "was not likely to conciliate antagonists; 
and indeed one may safely surmise that it was done by Shelley more for 
the rather wanton purpose of exasperating them than with any other 
object." 

Stanza XXXV. 

I. What softer voice. John Severn was the only one of Keats's 
friends who was actually present at the death of Keats. Were it not for 
a passage in Shelley's Preface to this poem (quoted on page 136), we 
would suppose that Severn's was the " softer voice " referred to here. 
The stanza, however, doubtless relates to Leigh Hunt, who, although far 
from unfriendly to Keats, was certainly not the ardent teacher, lover, and 
admirer of the dead poet that he is here represented to be. 

Stanza XXXVI. 

I. has drunk poison. Compare with The Lament for Bion,\\xi^ 19, 
page 43: "Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth," etc. — deaf and viperous 
murderer. See extract from Preface, page 136, above. 

Stanza XXXVIII. 

5. the pure spirit shall flow, etc. The pantheistic doctrine that all 
spiritual existences are finally reunited with universal and eternal essence 
of God, As an opposite theory, read In Memoriam, xlvi. 



148 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



Stanza XXXIX. 



1. he is not dead. See Lycidas, i66. Also The Dolefnll Lay of 
Clorinda — the passage already quoted on page 140, above. In this stanza, 
as well as in the preceding, we find the statement of Shelley's belief regard- 
ing the immortality of the soul, — "a belief," says Todhunter, "which was 
a faith rather than a creed." A few passages in other poems of his give 
further expression to the same idea. Sfee his lines. To William Shelley : — 

" Thy little footsteps on the sands 
Of a remote and lonely shore ; 
The twinkling of thine infant hands, 

Where now the worm will feed no more." 

Human life he represents as a dream. The state which we call death is 
the true existence. "We decay like corpses in a charnel house." But 
when we wake from this " mad trance," we shall pass to the more sub- 
stantial state, to which Adonais (as he says in the next stanza) has already 
departed. So Plato, Phccdq, 59 : " Every living thing comes from a dead 
thing. For if the soul exist before our birth, and if when it passes into 
life it cannot come from any other quarter than from death and the state 
of the dead, it is inevitable that it must exist after we are dead, since it is 
again to come into life." 

Stanza XLI. 

2. young Dawn. See stanza XIV., alcove, and the note on the same. 

Stanza XLII. 

I. made one with Nature. This is a statement, in another form, of 
the pantheistic conception already enlarged upon in stanza XXXVIII. 
Compare again with /;/ I\Iefno7-iam, xlvi. 

4. a presence. Compare with Wordsworth's Lntimations of Immor- 
tality, viii. 13 : — 

" Thou, over whom thy immortality 
Broods like the day, a master o'er a slave, 
A presence which is not to be put by." 

Stanza XLV. 

I. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown. "We are to understand 
(but Shelley is too great a master to formulate it in words) that Keats, 
as an * inheritor of unfulfilled renown,' — i.e. a great intellect cut off by 
death before its maturest fruits could be produced, — has now arrived 
among his compeers; they rise from theif thrones to welconie'hini. Ii^ 



ADOMAIS. 149 

this connection Shelley chooses to regard Keats as still a living spiritual 
personality — not simply as * made one with Nature.' " — Rossetti. 

3. Chatterton. Thomas Chatterton was born in 1752, and died in 
1770, aged seventeen. Wordsworth refers to him as — 

" the marvellous boy 
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride." 

Resolutio7i and bidependence. 

And Keats addresses him thus : — 

" Thou art among the stars 
Of highest heaven : to the rolling spheres 
Thou sweetly singest : nought thy hymning mars, 
Above the ingrate world and human fears." 

5. Sidney. Sir Philip Sidney died at the age of thirty-two. See 
Spenser's Astrophel, page 5 1 ; also note page 66. 

8. Lucan. Marcus Annseus Lucanus, commonly called Lucan, was 
born in Spain, A.D. 39; he was compelled to drink poison in 65, and died, 
aged twenty-six years, being condemned by Nero as connected with the 
conspiracy of Piso. 

Stanza XLVI. 

6. yon kingless sphere, etc. The inheritors of unfulfilled renown 
are speaking. They inform Adonais that one of the heavenly spheres has 
remained kingless until now, and silent alone in the heaven of song, wait- 
ing for his coming. He is the only person worthy to occupy its " winged 
throne," the only one who can wake it into music. The beautiful poetic 
idea of the music of the spheres is prominent here. It was Plato who 
taught that a siren sits on each planet, carolling a song of her own which 
harmonizes with those sung by the other seven. Job (xxxviii. 7) speaks 
of the time ** when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of 
God shouted for joy." See also Shakespeare, Merchant of Venice v. i. 

Stanza XLVII. 

I. Who mourns for Adonais, etc. That is, let any one who mourns 
for Adonais come forth and reason upon the matter. Let him consider 
the magnitude of the earth, the vastness of the universe, and his own 
insignificance. But let him not entirely lose heart in this contemplation, 
or through despair be " lured to the brink " between life and death. 

Stanza XLVIII. 

I. Or go to Rome. The address is still to the mourner. — Oh, not of 
him. He is occupying his celestial sphere in company with the other 



150 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" inheritors of unfulfilled renown." Only his body and our joy lie buried 
at Rome. 

Stanza XLIX. 

7. a slope of green access. The English burying-ground wherein 
Keats was interred, and where soon afterwards the ashes of Shelley himself 
were placed. 

Stanza L. 

3. one keen pyramid. The pyramid or tomb of Caius Cestius, near 
which Keats was buried. See Preface to the poem. Of Caius Cestius, 
nothing is really known except that the peculiar pyramidal monument 
known by his name was erected to perpetuate his memory. 

7. newer band. The Protestants for whom the cemetery was set 
apart. 

Stanza LI. 

I. these graves are all too young. The cemetery had been but 
lately established. Rossetti says : " No doubt Shelley is here thinking in 
especial of his own bitterly mourned infant son William, buried in this 
ground not two years before." See quotation on stanza XXXIX., above. 

Stanza LII. 

I. The one. The universal Mind, the Eternal (stanza XXXVIII.), 
Nature. — the many. The individuals, the human beings, who are 
finally "made one with Nature." 

3. Life, like a dome, etc This is a beautiful simile which will repay 
careful study. 

Stanza LV. 

" The last lines of Adonais might be read as a prophecy of his own 
death by drowning. The frequent recurrence of this thought in his poetry 
is, to say the least, singular." — J. A. Symonds. 

"The concluding stanzas have a solemn intensity of inspiration which 
produces a sensation of awe in the reader's mind. A supernatural power 
seems really and sensibly to work in the poet's soul, and hurry it away into 
unknown regions of thought which words cannot illumine. If Shelley's 
spirit, at least, be not an immortal thing, life must be a mockery, and we 
mortals indeed the fools of time." — John Todhimter. 



IN MEMORIAM 

A. H. H.— Obiit MDCCCXXXIII 
By Alfred Tennyson 

1849 



The poem entitled In Memoriam is a viomanent erected by friendship 
to the tnemory of a gifted son of the historian Hallam. It is divided into 
a number of cabinet-like co??ipartments, which, with fine and delicate 
shades of difference, exhibit the various phases through zvhich the bereaved 
spirit passes from the first shock of despair, dull, hopeless misery and 
rebellion, up to the dawn of hope, acquiescent trust, and even calm hap- 
piness again. In the meanwhile many a questiojt has been solved, zvhich 
can only suggest itself when suffering forces the soul to front the realities 
of our mysterious existence ; such as : Is there indeed a life to come ? 
And if there is, will it be a conscious life ? Shall I know that myself? 
Will there be jmitual recognition? contimiance of attachments ? Shall 
friend ?neet friend, and brother brother, as friends and brothers ? Or., 
again : How comes it that one so gifted was taken azvay so early, in the 
maturity of his powers, just at the mo7nent zvheti they seeined about to 
become available to mankind? What means all this, and is there not 
something tvrong ? Is the lazv of Creation Love indeed I By sloiu degrees, 
all these doubts, and worse, are anszvered ; not as a philosopher zvould 
ansiver the?n, jior as a theologian, or a metaphysician, but as it is the 
duty of a poet to reply, by intuitive faculty, in strains in which Imagi- 
nation predominates over ^Thottght and Memory. . . . 7^0 a coarser class 
of minds In Memoriam appears too melancholy : one long monotone of 
grief It is simply one of the 7nost victorious songs that ever poet chatited ; 
with the mysterious undertone, no doubt, of sadness which belongs to all 
human joy, in front of the mysteries of death and sorroxv ; but that 
belongs to every true note of human triumph except a Bacchanalian drink- 
ing song. And that it should predominate in a monumental record is 
not particularly unnatural. — F. W. Robertson. 



En Hcmortant- 

ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM. 
Obiit mdcccxxxiii. 

^>»iOO 

Strong Son of God, immortal Love 

Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
By faith, and faith alone, embrace. 

Believing where we cannot prove; 

Thine are these orbs of light and shade; 

Thou madest Life in man and brute; 

Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot 
Is on the skull which thou hast made. 

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust : 

Thou madest man, he knows not why; 
He thinks he was not made to die; 

And thou hast made him : thou art just. 

Thou seemest human and divine, 

The highest, hoHest manhood, thou : 
Our wills are ours, we know not how; 

Our wills are ours to make them thine. 

Our little systems have their day; 

They have their day and cease to be : 
They are but broken lights of thee, 

And thou, O Lord, art more than they. 



154 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

We have but faith : we cannot know : 
For knowledge is of things we see; 
And yet we trust it comes from thee, 

A beam in darkness : let it grow. 

Let knowledge grow from more to more, 
But more of reverence in us dwell; 
That mind and soul, according well, 

May make one music as before. 

But vaster. We are fools and slight; 
We mock thee when we do not fear : 
But help thy foolish ones to bear; 

Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light. 

Forgive what seemed my sin in me ; 

What seemed my worth since I began; 

For merit lives from man to man, 
And not from man, O Lord, to thee. 

Forgive my grief for one removed, 
Thy creature, whom I found so fair. 
I trust he lives in thee, and there 

I find him worthier to be loved. 

Forgive these wild and wandering cries, 
Confusions of a wasted youth ; 
Forgive them where they fail in truth, 

And in thy wisdom make me wise. 
1849. 



I held it truth, with him who sings 
To one clear harp in divers tones. 
That men may rise on stepping-stones 

Of their dead selves to higher things. 

But who shall so forecast the years 
And find in loss a gain to match ? 



IN MEMORIAM. ISS 

Or reach a hand thro' time to catch 
The far-off interest of tears ? 

Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drowned, 
Let darkness keep her raven gloss : 
Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss. 

To dance with death, to beat the ground, 

Than that the victor Hours should scorn 
The long result of love, and boast, 
" Behold the man that loved and lost, 

But all he was is overworn." 

II. 

Old Yew, which graspest at the stones 
That name the under-lying dead. 
Thy fibres net the dreamless head, 

Thy roots are wrapt about the bones. 

The seasons bring the flower again. 
And bring the firstling to the flock ; 
And in the dusk of thee, the clock 

Beats out the little lives of men. 

O not for thee the glow, the bloom, 

Who changest not in any gale, 

Nor branding summer suns avail 
To touch thy thousand years of gloom : 

And gazing on thee, sullen tree. 

Sick for thy stubborn hardihood, 

I seem to fail from out my blood 
And grow incorporate into thee. 



156 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

III. 

O Sorrow, cruel fellowship, 

O Priestess in the vaults of Death, 

sweet and bitter in a breath. 
What whispers from thy lying lip ? 

"The stars," she whispers, "blindly run; 

A web is wov'n across the sky ; 

From out waste places comes a cry, 
And murmurs from the dying sun : 

" And all the phantom. Nature stands — 
With all the music in her tone, 
A hollow echo of my own, — 

A hollow form with empty hands." 

And shall I take a thing so blind. 
Embrace her as my natural good ; 
Or crush her, like a vice of blood, 

Upon the threshold of the mind.'* 

IV. 

To Sleep I give my powers away ; 
My will is bondsman to the dark ; 

1 sit within a helmless bark. 
And with my heart I muse and say : 

O heart, how fares it with thee now. 
That thou shouldst fail from thy desire, 
Who scarcely darest to inquire, 

" What is it makes me beat so low .? " 

Something it is which thou hast lost. 
Some pleasure from thine early years. 



IN MEMORIAM. 157 

Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears, 
That grief hath shaken into frost ! 

Such clouds of nameless trouble cross 
All night below the darkened eyes : 
With morning wakes the will, and cries, 

''Thou shalt not be the fool of loss." 

V. 

I sometimes hold it half a sin 

To put in words the grief I feel ; 

For words, like Nature, half reveal 
And half conceal the Soul within. 

But, for the unquiet heart and brain, 
• A use in measured language lies ; 

The sad mechanic exercise. 
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. 

In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er, 
Like coarsest clothes against the cold ; 
But that large grief which these enfold 

Is given in outline and no more. 

VI. 

One writes, that " Other friends remain," 
That '' Loss is common to the race," — 
And common is the commonplace. 

And vacant chaff well meant for grain. 

That loss is common would not make 
My own less bitter, rather more : 
Too common ! Never morning wore 

To evening, but some heart did break. 



158 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

O father, wheresoe'er thou be, 

Who pledgest now thy gallant son ; 

A shot, ere half thy draught be done, 

Hath still'd the life that beat from thee. \ 

\ 

O mother, praying God will save | 

Thy sailor, — while thy head is bowed, \ 

His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud, \ 

Drops in his vast and wandering grave. ^ 

Ye know no more than I who wrought \ 
At that last hour to please him well ; 

Who mused on all I had to tell, '\ 

And something written, something thought ; j 

Expecting still his advent home ; 

And ever met him on his way 

With wishes, thinking, here to-day, ; 

Or here to-morrow will he come. ] 

Oh, somewhere, meek unconscious dove, j 

That sittest ranging golden hair; j 

And glad to find thyself so fair, , 

Poor child, that waitest for thy love ! \ 

For now her father's chimney glows "; 

In expectation of a guest ; j 

And thinking, '' This will please him best," 

She takes a ribbon or a rose ; - 

j 
For he will see them on to-night ; 

And with the thought her color burns ; . 

And, having left the glass, she turns ; 
Once more to set a ringlet right; 



IN MEM OKI AM. 159 

And, even when she turned, the curse 
Had fallen, and her future lord 
Was drowned in passing thro' the ford, 

Or killed in falling from his horse. 

O what to her shall be the end ? 

And what to me remains of good ? 

To her, perpetual maidenhood. 
And unto me no second friend. 



VII. 



Dark house, by which once more I stand \ 

Here in the long unlovely street, ' i 

Doors, where my heart was used to beat . j 

So quickly, waiting for a hand, 1 

A hand that can be clasped no more, — 

Behold me, for I cannot sleep, \ 

And like a guilty thing I creep j 

At earliest morning to the door. \ 

He is not here ; but far away 1 

The noise of life begins again, I 

And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain j 

On the bald street breaks the blank day. i 

i 

! 

VIII. { 

A happy lover who has come 

To look on her that loves him well, J 

Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell, ' 

And learns her gone and far from home ; ; 

He saddens, all the magic light ; 
Dies off at once from bower and hall. 



160 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And all the place is dark, and all 
The chambers emptied of delight : 

So find I every pleasant spot 

In which we two were wont to meet, 
The field, the chamber, and the street, 

For all is dark where thou art not. 

Yet as that other, wandering there 
In those deserted walks, may find 
A flower beat with rain and wind. 

Which once she fostered up with care ; 

So seems it in my deep regret, 

my forsaken heart, with thee 
And this poor flower of poesy 

Which little cared for fades not yet. 

But since it pleased a vanished eye, 

1 go to plant it on his tomb, 
That if it can it there may bloom, 

Or dying, there at least may die. 

IX. 

Fair ship, that from the Italian shore 
Sailest the placid ocean-plains 
With my lost Arthur's loved remains, 

Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er. 

So draw him home to those that mourn 
In vain ; a favorable speed 
Ruffle thy mirrored mast, and lead 

Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn. 



IN MEMORIAM. 161 I 

All night no ruder air perj^lex | 

Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright : 

As our pure love, thro' early light i 

Shall glimmer on the dewy decks. ^ 

Sphere all your lights around, above ; ; 

Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow ; 

Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now, j 

My friend, the brother of my love ; I 

My Arthur, whom I shall not see ' 

Till all my widowed race be run ; ■ 

^ Dear as the mother to the son, \ 

More than my brothers are to me. ■ 

X. 

I hear the noise about thy keel; 

I hear the bell struck in the nio:ht : I 

I see the cabin-window bright ; I 

I see the sailor at the wheel. I 

Thou bringest the sailor to his wife. 

And travelled men from foreign lands ; 

And letters unto trembling hands ; 
And, thy dark freight, a vanished life. ' 

So bring him : we have idle dreams : 

This look of quiet flatters thus i 

Our home-bred fancies : oh to us, \ 

The fools of habit, sweeter seems 

To rest beneath the clover sod, 

That takes the sunshine and the rains, 

Or where the kneeling hamlet drains 
The chalice of the grapes of God ; 



162 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Than if with thee the roaring wells 
Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine ; 
And hands so often clasped in mine, 

Should toss with tangle and with shells. 

XI. 

Calm is the morn without a sound, 
Calm as to suit a calmer grief, 
And only thro' the faded leaf 

The chestnut pattering to the ground : 

Calm and deep peace on this high wold, 
And on these dews that drench the furze, 
And all the silvery gossamers 

That twinkle into green and gold : 

Calm and still light on yon great plain 
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers, 
And crowded farms and lessening towers. 

To mingle with the bounding main : 

Calm and deep peace in this wide air, 
These leaves that redden to the fall ; 
And in my heart, if calm at all, 

If any calm, a calm despair : 

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep, 

And waves that sway themselves in rest. 
And dead calm in that noble breast 

Which heaves but with the heaving deep. 

XII. 

Lo as a dove when up she springs 
To bear thro' heaven a tale of woe. 



IN MEMOKIAM. 163 

Some dolorous message knit below 
The wild pulsation of her wings ; 

Like her I go ; I cannot stay ; 
I leave this mortal ark behind, 
A weight of ner\'es without a mind, 

And leave the cliffs, and haste away 

O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large, 

And reach the glow of southern skies, 
And see the sails at distance rise. 

And linger weeping on the marge, 

And saying : " Comes he thus, my friend ? 

Is this the end of all my care ? " 

And circle moaning in the air : 
" Is this the end ? Is this the end ? " 

And forward dart again, and play 
About the prow, and back return 
To where the body sits, and learn, 

That I have been an hour away. 

XIII. 

Tears of the widower, when he sees 
A late-lost form that sleep reveals. 
And moves his doubtful arms, and feels 

Her place is empty, fall like these ; 

Which weep a loss forever new, 

A void where heart on heart reposed ; 

And, where warm hands have prest and closed, 

Silence, till I be silent too. 



164 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Which weep the comrade of my choice, 
An awful thought, a Ufe removed. 
The human-hearted man I loved, 

A Spirit, not a breathing voice. 

Come Time, and teach me, many years, 

I do not suffer in a dream ; 

For now so strange do these things seem, 
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears ; 

My fancies time to rise on wing, 

And glance about the approaching sails. 
As tho' they brought but merchants' bales. 

And not the burden that they bring. 

XIV. 

If one should bring me this report. 

That thou hadst touched the land to-day, 
And I went down unto the quay. 

And found thee lying in the port; 

And standing, muffled round with woe. 
Should see thy passengers in rank 
Come stepping lightly down the plank. 

And beckoning unto those they know ; 

And if along with these should come 
The man I held as half-divine ; 
Should strike a sudden hand in mine. 

And ask a thousand things of home ; 

And I should tell him all my pain. 
And how my life had drooped of late. 
And he should sorrow o'er my state 

And marvel what possessed my brain ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 165 

And I perceived no touch of change, 

No hint of death in all his frame, 

But found him all in all the same, 
I should not feel it to be strange. 

XV. 

To-night the winds begin to rise 

And roar from yonder dropping day ; 
The last red leaf is whirled away. 

The rooks are blown about the skies ; 

The forest cracked, the waters curled. 

The cattle huddled on the lea ; 

And wildly dashed on tower and tree 
The sunbeam strikes along the world : 

And but for fancies, which aver 

That all thy motions gently pass 

Athwart a plane of molten glass, 
I scarce could brook the strain and stir 

That makes the barren branches loud ; 

And but for fear it is not so. 

The wild unrest that lives in woe 
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud 

That rises upward always higher. 
And onward drags a laboring breast. 
And topples round the dreary west, 

A looming bastion fringed with fire. 

XVI. 

What words are these have fall'n from me } 
Can calm desjDair and wild unrest 



166 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Be tenants of a single breast, 
Or sorrow such a changeling be ? 

Or doth she only seem to take 

The touch of change in calm or storm ; 
But knows no more of transient form 

In her deep self, than some dead lake 

That holds the shadow of a lark 
Hung in the shadow of a heaven ? 
Or has the shock, so harshly given, 

Confused me like the unhappy bark 

That strikes by night. a craggy shelf. 
And staggers blindly ere she sink ? 
And stunned me from my power to think 

And all my knowledge of myself ; 

And made me that delirious man 
Whose fancy fuses old and new, 
And flashes into false and true. 

And mingles all without a plan ? 

XVII. 

Thou comest, much wept for : such a breeze 
Compelled thy canvas, and my prayer 
Was as the whisper of an air 

To breathe thee over lonely seas. 

For I in spirit saw thee move 

Thro' circles of the bounding sky, 
Week after week : the days go by : 

Come quick, thou bringest all I love. 



IN MEiMORIAM. I67 

Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam, 

My blessing, Hke a Hne of Hght, 

Is on the waters day and night. 
And Hke a beacon guards thee home. 

So may whatever tempest mars 

Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark ; 
And balmy drops in summer dark 

Slide from the boscmi of the stars. 

So kind an office hath been done. 

Such precious relics brought by thee ; 
The dust of him I shall not see 

Till all my widowed race be run. 

XVIII. 

'Tis well ; 'tis something ; we may stand 

Where he in English earth is laid, 

And from his ashes may be made 
The violet of his native land. 

'Tis little ; but it looks in truth 

As if the quiet bones were blest 

Among famiHar names to rest 
And in the places of his youth. 

Come then, pure hands, and bear the head 
That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep, 
And come, whatever loves to weep. 

And hear the ritual of the dead. 

Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be, 
I, falling on his faithful heart. 
Would breathing thro' his lips impart 

The life that almost dies in me ; 



168 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES, 

That dies not, but endures with pain, 
And slowly forms the firmer mind, 
Treasuring the look it cannot find. 

The words that are not heard again. 

XIX. 

The Danube to the Severn gave 

The darkened heart that beat no more ; 
They laid him by the pleasant shore, 

And in the hearing of the wave. 

There twice a day the Severn fills ; 
The salt sea-water passes by. 
And hushes half the babbling Wye, 

And makes a silence in the hills. 

The Wye is hushed nor moved along. 
And hushed my deepest grief of all. 
When filled with tears that cannot fall, 

I brim with sorrow drowning song. 

The tide flows down, the wave again 
Is vocal in its wooded walls ; 
My deeper anguish also falls, 

And I can speak a little then. 

XX. 

The lesser griefs that may be said. 
That breathe a thousand tender vows, 
And but as servants in a house 

Where lies the master newly dead ; 

Who speak their fcehng as it is, 

And weep the fulness from the mind : 



IN MEMORIAM. 169 

'' It will be hard," they say, "to find 
Another service such as this." 

My lighter moods are like to these, 

That out of words a comfort win ; 

But there are other griefs within, 
And tears that at their fountain freeze. 

For by the hearth the children sit 
Cold in that atmosphere of Death, 
And scarce endure to draw the breath. 

Or like to noiseless phantoms flit : 

But open converse there is none. 
So much the vital spirits sink 
To see the vacant chair, and think, 

'' How good ! how kind ! and he is gone." 

XXI. 

I sing to him that rests below, 

And, since the grasses round me wave, 
I take the grasses of the grave, 

And make them pipes whereon to blow. 

The traveller hears me now and then. 
And sometimes harshly will he speak : 
" This fellow would make weakness weak. 

And melt the waxen hearts of men." 

Another answers, '' Let him be, 
He loves to make parade of pain. 
That with his piping he may gain 

The praise that comes to constancy." 



170 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

A third is wroth, " Is this an hour 
For private sorrow's barren song, 
When more and more the people throng 

The chairs and thrones of civil power ? 

'' A time to sicken and to swoon, 

When Science reaches forth her arms 
To feel from world to world, and charms 

Her secret from the latest moon ? " 

Behold, ye speak an idle thing : 
Ye never knew the sacred dust : 
I do but sing because I must. 

And pipe but as the hnnets sing : 

And one is glad ; her note is gay. 
For now her little ones have ranged ; 
And one is sad ; her note is changed, 

Because her brood is stol'n away. 

XXII. 

The path by which we twain did go. 

Which led by tracts that pleased us well. 
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, 

From flower to flower, from snow to snow : 

And we with singing cheered the way, 
And, crowned with all the season lent, 
From April on to April went. 

And glad at heart from May to May : 

But where the path we walked began 
To slant the fifth autumnal slope, 
As we descended following Hope, 

There sat the Shadow feared of man ; 



IN MEM OR I AM. 171 

Who broke our fair companionship, 
And spread his mantle dark and cold, 
And wrapt thee formless in the fold, 

And dulled the murmur on thy lip, 

And bore thee where I could not see 
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste, 
And think, that somewhere in the waste 

The Shadow sits and waits for me. 

XXIII. 

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut, 

Or breaking into song by fits. 

Alone, alone, to where he sits, 
The Shadow cloaked from head to foot. 

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds, 
I wander, often falling lame, 
And looking back to whence I came. 

Or on to where the pathway leads ; 

And crying : " How changed from where it ran 
Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb : 
But all the lavish hills would hum 

The murmur of a happy Pan : 

*' When each by turns was guide to each. 
And Fancy light from Fancy caught, 
And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought 

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech ; 

" And all we met was fair and good. 

And all was good that Time could bring. 
And all the secret of the Spring 

Moved in the chambers of the blood ; 



172 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

" And many an old philosophy 
On Argive heights divinely sang, 
And round us all the thicket rang 

To many a flute of Arcady." 

XXIV. 

And was the day of my delight 
As pure and perfect as I say ? 
The very source and fount of day 

Is dash'd with wandering isles of night. 

If all was good and fair we met, 
This earth had been the paradise 
It never looked to human eyes 

Since Adam left his garden yet. 

And is it that the haze of grief 

Makes former gladness loom so great ? 
To lowness of the present state, 

That sets the past in this relief ? 

Or that the past will always win 
A glory from its being far ; 
And orb into the perfect star 

We saw not, when we moved therein ? 



XXV. ] 



I know that this was life — the track 
Whereon with equal feet we fared ; 
And then, as now, the day prepared 

The daily burden for the back. 

But this it was that made me move 
As light as carrier-birds in air ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 173 

I loved the weight I had to bear, 
Because it needed help of Love : 

Nor could I weary, heart or limb, 

When mighty Love would cleave in twain 
The lading of a single pain, 

And part it, giving half to him. 

XXVI. 

Still onward winds the dreary way ; 
I with it ; for I long to prove 
No lapse of moons can canker Love, 

Whatever fickle tongues may say. 

And if that eye which watches guilt 
And goodness, and hath power to see 
Within the green the mouldered tree. 

And towers fall'n as soon as built — 

Oh, if indeed that eye foresee 

Or see (in Him is no before) 

In more of life true life no more. 
And Love the indifference to be, 

Then might I find, ere yet the morn 
Breaks hither over Indian seas, 
That Shadow waiting with the keys. 

To shroud me from my proper scorn. 

xxvii. 

I envy not in any moods 

The captive void of noble rage, 

The linnet born within the cage. 
That never knew the summer woods : 



174 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

I envy not the beast that takes 
His license in the field of time, 
Unfettered by the sense of crime, 

To whom a conscience never wakes ; 

Nor, what may count itself as blest. 
The heart that never plighted troth, 
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth ; 

Nor any want-begotten rest. 

I hold it true, whate'er befall ; 

I feel it, when I sorrow most; 

'Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

XXVIII. 

The time draws near the birth of Christ : 
The moon is hid ; the night is still ; 
The Christmas bells from hill to hill 

Answer each other in the mist. 

Four voices of four hamlets round, 

From far and near, on mead and moor, 
Swell out and fail, as if a door 

Were shut between me and the sound : 

Each voice four changes on the wind. 
That now dilate, and now decrease, 
Peace and good-will, good-will and peace, 

Peace and good-will, to all mankind. 

This year I slept and woke with pain, 
I almost wished no more to wake. 
And that my hold on life would break 

Before I heard those bells again : 



IN MEMORIAM. 175 



But they my troubled spirit rule, 

For they controlled me when a boy ; 
They bring me sorrow touched with joy, 

The merry, merry bells of Yule. 



XXIX. 

With such compelling cause to grieve | 

As daily vexes household peace, ] 

And chains regret to his decease, j 

How dare we keep our Christmas-eve : ! 

1 

Which brings no more a welcome guest j 

To enrich the threshold of the night J 

With showered largess of delight, | 

In dance and song and game and jest. \ 

Yet go, and while the holly boughs 
Entwine the cold baptismal font, 
Make one wreath more for Use and Wont, 

That guard the portals of the house ; ■ 

Old sisters of a day gone by. 

Gray nurses, loving nothing new; 

Why should they miss their yearly due 
Before their time ? They too will die. : 



XXX. 

With trembling fingers did we weave 
The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
A rainy cloud possessed the earth, 

And sadly fell our Christmas-eve. 



176 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. ■! 

1 
At our old pastimes in the hall 

We gambolled, making vain pretence \ 

Of gladness, with an awful sense 

Of one mute shadow watching all. 

I 
We paused : the winds were in the beech : J 

We heard them sweep the winter land ; j 

And in a circle hand-in-hand j 

Sat silent, looking each at each. •; 

Then echo-like our voices rang ; j 

We sung, tho' every eye was dim, 1 

A merry song we sang with him 1 

Last year : impetuously we sang : ' 

We ceased : a gentler feeling crept 

Upon us : surely rest is meet : 

" They rest," we said, "their sleep is sweet," 
And silence followed, and we wept. \ 

Our voices took a higher range ; 

Once more we sang : ''They do not die 

Nor lose their mortal sympathy, \ 

Nor change to us, although they change ; 

'' Rapt from the fickle and the frail 1 

With gathered power, yet the same, \, 

Pierces the keen seraphic flame \ 

From orb to orb, from veil to veil." 



Rise, happy morn, rise, holy morn. 

Draw forth the cheerful day from night : 
O Father, touch the east, and light 

The light that shone when Hope was born. 



IN MEMORIAAL Yll . 

XXXI. 

When Lazarus left his charnel-cave, \ 

And home to Mary's house returned, \ 

Was this demanded, if he yearned \ 

To hear her weeping by his grave ? : 

"Where wert thou, brother, those four days ? " \ 

There Hvcs no record of reply. 
Which telling what it is to die j 

Had surely added praise to praise. I 

I 

From every house the neighbors met, j 

The streets were filled with joyful sound, \ 

A solemn gladness even crowned \ 

The purple brows of Olivet. i 

Behold a man raised up by Christ ! ,: 

The rest remaineth unrevealed ; ! 

He told it not ; or something sealed • 'j 

The lips of that Evangelist. | 

j 

XXXII. ' 

Her eyes are homes of silent prayer. 

Nor other thought her mind admits \ 

But, he was dead, and there he sits, j 

And he that brought him back is there. ] 

Then one deep love doth supersede ' 

All other, when her ardent gaze : 

Roves from the living brother's face, ; 

And rests upon the Life indeed. I 

All subtle thought, all curious fears, j 

Borne down by gladness so complete, j 

■i 

-i 



178 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES, 

She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet 
With costly spikenard and with tears. 

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, 
Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
What souls possess themselves so pure, 

Or is there blessedness like theirs ? 

XXXIII. 

O thou that after toil and storm 

Mayst seem to have reached a purer air, 
Whose faith has centre everywhere. 

Nor cares to fix itself to form, 

Leave thou thy sister when she prays. 
Her early Heaven, her happy views ; 
Nor thou with shadowed hint confuse 

A life that leads melodious days. 

» 

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine. 
Her hands are quicker unto good : 
Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood 

To which she links a truth divine ! 

See thou, that countest reason ripe 
In holding by the law within, 
Thou fail not in a world of sin. 

And ev'n for want of such. a type. 

XXXIV. 

My own dim life should teach me this. 
That life shall live for evermore. 
Else earth is darkness at the core. 

And dust and ashes all that is ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 179 

This round of green, this orb of flame, 

Fantastic beauty ; such as lurks 

In some wild poet, when he works 
Without a conscience or an aim. 

What then were God to such as I ? 

'Twere hardly worth my while to choose 

Of things all mortal, or to use 
A little patience ere I die ; 

'Twere best at once to sink to peace, 
Like birds the charming serpent draws, 
To drop head-foremost in the jaws 

Of vacant darkness and to cease. 

XXXV. 

Yet if some voice that man could trust 
Should murmur from the narrow house, 
" The cheeks drop in ; the body bows ; 

Man dies ; nor is there hope in dust : " 

Might I not say } " Yet even here, 

But for one hour, O Love, I strive 

To keep so sweet a thing alive .'* " 
But I should turn mine ears and hear 

The moanings of the homeless sea, 

The sound of streams that swift or slow 
Draw down Ionian hills, and sow 

The dust of continents to be ; 

And Love would answer with a sigh, 
" The sound of that forgetful shore 
Will change my sweetness more and more. 

Half-dead to know that I shall die." 



180 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. ] 

1 

O me ! what profits it to put ; 

An idle case ? If Death were seen \ 

At first as Death, Love had not been, < 

Or been in narrowest working shut, 

Mere fellowship of sluggish moods, \ 

Or in his coarsest Satyr-shape j 
Had bruised the herb and crushed the grape, : 

And basked and battened in the woods. '■ 

XXXVI. 

Tho' truths in manhood darkly join, j 

Deep-seated in our mystic frame, -; 

We yield all blessing to the name ; 

Of Him that made them current coin ; I 

For wisdom dealt with mortal powers ^ 

Where truth in closest words shall fail, i 

Where truth embodied in a tale j 

Shall enter in at lowly doors. | 

And so the Word had breath, and wrought j 

With human hands the creed of creeds ; 

In loveliness of perfect deeds, i 

More strong than all poetic thought ; ] 

Which he may read that binds the sheaf. 
Or builds the house, or digs the grave. 
And those wild eyes that watch the wave 

In roarings round the coral reef. 

xxxvii. 

Urania speaks with darkened brow : 

" Thou pratest here where thou art least ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 181 

This faith has many a purer priest, 
And many an abler voice than thou. 

*' Go down beside thy native rill, 
On thy Parnassus set thy feet, 
And hear thy laurel whfsper sweet 

About the ledges of the hill." 

And my Melpomene replies, 

A touch of shame upon her cheek : 
" I am not worthy ev'n to speak 

Of thy prevailing mysteries ; 

*' For I am but an earthly Muse, 

And owning but a little art 

To lull with song an aching heart. 
And render human love his dues ; 

*' But brooding on the dear one dead, 

And all he said of things divine, 

(And dear to me as sacred wine. 
To dying lips is all he said), 

" I murmured, as I came along, 

Of comfort clasped in truth revealed ; 
And loitered in the master's field. 

And darkened sanctities with song." 

XXXVIII. 

With weary steps I loiter on, 

Tho' always under altered skies 

The purple from the distance dies. 
My prospect and horizon gone. 



182 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

No joy the blowing season gives, 
The herald melodies of spring, 
But in the songs I love to sing 

A doubtful gleam of solace lives. 

If any care for what is here 

Survive in spirits rendered free, 
Then are these songs I sing of thee 

Not all ungrateful to thine ear, 

XXXIX. 

Old warder of these buried bones, 

And answering now my random stroke 
With fruitful cloud and living smoke, 

Dark yew, that graspest at the stones 

And dippest toward the dreamless head, 
To thee too conies the golden hour 
When flower is feeling after flower ; 

But Sorrow fixt upon the dead, 

And darkening the dark graves of men. 
What whispered from her lying lips } 
Thy gloom is kindled at the tips. 

And passes into gloom again. 

XL. 

Could we forget the widowed hour 
And look on Spirits breathed away, 
As on a maiden in the day 

When first she wears her orange-flower ! 

When crowned with blessing she doth rise 
To take her latest leave of home. 



IN MEAIORIAM. 183 

And hopes and light regrets that come 

Make April of her tender eyes ; \ 

'i 

And doubtful joys the father move, 1 

And tears are on the mother's face, I 

As parting with a long embrace ; 

She enters other realms of love ; i 

Her office there to rear, to teach, 

Becoming as is meet and fit 

A link among the days, to knit 
The generations each with each ; 

And doubtless, unto thee is given 

A life that bears immortal fruit 

In such great offices as suit 
The full-grown energies of heaven. 

Ay me, the difference I discern ! 

How often shall her old fireside 

Be cheered with tidings of the bride. 
How often she herself return, 

And tell them all they would have told. 
And bring her babe, and make her boast, 
Till even those that missed her most. 

Shall count new things as dear as old : 

But thou and I have shaken hands, 

Till growing winters lay me low ; 

My paths are in the fields I know. 
And thine in undiscovered lands. 



184 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

XLI. 

Thy spirit ere our fatal loss 

Did ever rise from high to higher ; 
As mounts the heavenward altar fire, 

As flies the lighter thro' the gross. 

But thou art turned to something strange, 
And I have lost the links that bound 
Thy changes ; here upon the ground, 

No more partaker of thy change. 

Deep folly ! yet that this could be — 
That I could wing my will with might 
To leap the grades of life and light, 

And flash at once, my friend, to thee : 

For tho' my nature rarely yields 

To that vague fear implied in death ; 
Nor shudders at the gulfs beneath. 

The bowlings from forgotten fields ; . 

Yet oft when sundown skirts the moor 

An inner trouble I behold, 

A spectral doubt which makes me cold, 
That I shall be thy mate no more, 

Tho' following with an upward mind 
The wonders that have come to thee, 
Thro' all the secular to-be. 

But evermore a life behind. 

XLII. 

I vex my heart with fancies dim ; 
He still outstript me in the race ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 185 

It was but unity of place 
That made me dream I ranked with him. 

And so may Place retain us still, 

And he the much-beloved again, 

A lord of large experience, train 
To riper growth the mind and will; 

And what delights can equal those 
That stir the spirit's inner deeps, 
When one that loves but knows not, reaps 

A truth from one that loves and knows ? 

XLIII. 

If Sleep and Death be truly one, 

And every spirit's folded bloom 

Thro' all its intervital gloom 
In some lone trance should slumber on ; 

Unconscious of the sliding hour, 

Bare of the body, might it last. 

And silent traces of the past 
Be all the color of the flower : 

So then were nothing lost to man ; 

So that still garden of the souls 

In many a figured leaf enrolls 
The total world since life began ; 

And love will last as pure and whole 

As when he loved me here in time, 

And at the spiritual prime 
Rewaken with the dawning soul. 



186 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

XLIV. 

How fares it with the happy dead ? 

For here the man is more and more ; 

But he forgets the days before 
God shut the doorways of his head. 

The days have vanished, tone and tint, 
And yet perhaps the hoarding sense 
Gives out at times (he knows not whence) 

A Httle flash, a mystic hint ; 

And in the long harmonious years 
(If Death so taste Lethean springs) 
May some dim touch of earthly things 

Surprise thee ranging with thy peers. 

If such a dreamy touch should fall. 
Oh, turn thee round, resolve the doubt 
My guardian angel will speak out 

In that high place, and tell thee all. 

XLV. 

The baby new to earth and sky. 
What time his tender palm is prest 
Against the circle of the breast, 

Has never thought that " this is I : " 

But as he grows he gathers much. 
And learns the use of *' I " and '' me 
And finds '' I am not what I see, 

And other than the things I touch." 

So rounds he to a separate mind 

From whence clear memory may begin, 



IN iMEMORIAM. \^>j 

As thro' the frame that binds him in 
His isolation grows defined. 

This use may He in blood and breath, 
Which else were fruitless of their due, 
Had man to learn himself anew 

Beyond the second birth of Death. 

XLVI. 

We ranging down this lower track. 

The path we came by, thorn and flower, 
Is shadowed by the growing hour. 

Lest life should fail in looking back. 

So be it : there no shade can last 
In that deep dawn behind the tomb, 
But clear from marge to marge shall bloom 

The eternal landscape of the past ; 

A lifelong tract of time revealed ; 

The fruitful hours of still increase; 

Days ordered in a wealthy peace. 
And those five years its richest field. 

O Love, thy province were not large, 
A bounded field, nor stretching far ; 
Look also. Love, a brooding star, 

A rosy warmth from marge to marge. 

XLVII. 

That each, who seems a separate whole. 
Should move his rounds, and fusing all 
The skirts of self again, should fall 

Remerging in the general Soul, 



188 THE BOOR OF ELEGIES. 

Is faith as vague as all unsweet : 
Eternal form shall still divide 
The eternal soul from all beside ; 

And I shall know him when we meet : 

And we shall sit at endless feast, 
Enjoying each the other's good : 
What vaster dream can hit the mood 

Of Love on earth ? He seeks at least 

Upon the last and sharpest height, 
Before the spirits fade away. 
Some landing place, to clasp and say, 

*' Farewell ! We lose ourselves in light." 

XLVIII. 

If these brief lays, of Sorrow born, 
Were taken to be such as closed 
Grave doubts and answers here proposed. 

Then these were such as men might scorn : 

Her care is not to part and prove ; 
She takes, when harsher moods remit. 
What slender shade of doubt may flit, 

And makes it vassal unto love : 

And hence, indeed, she sports with words. 
But better serves a wholesome law. 
And holds it sin and shame to draw 

The deepest measure from the chords : 

Nor dare she trust a larger lay. 
But rather loosens from the lip 
Short swallow-flights of song, that dip 

Their wings in tears, and skim away. 



IN MEMORIAM. 189 



XLIX. 



From art, from nature, from the schools, 
Let random influences glance, 
Like light in many a shivered lance 

That breaks about the dappled pools : 

The lightest wave of thought shall lisp, 
The fancy's tenderest eddy wreathe, 
The slightest air of song shall breathe 

To make the sullen surface crisp. 

And look thy look, and go thy way, 

But blame not thou the winds that make 
The seeming-wanton ripple break, 

The tender-pencilled shadow play. 

Beneath all fancied hopes and fears 
Ay me, the sorrow deepens down. 
Whose muffled motions blindly drown 

The bases of my life in tears. 

L. 

Be near me when my light is low, 

When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick 
And tingle ; and the heart is sick. 

And all the wheels of Being slow. 

Be near me when the sensuous frame 
Is racked with pangs that conquer trust ; 
And Time, a maniac scattering dust. 

And Life, a Fury slinging flame. 

Be near me when my faith is dry, 
And men the flies of latter spring, 



190 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, 
And weave their petty cells and die. 

Be near me when I fade away, 

To point the term of human strife. 
And on the low dark verge of life 

The twilight of eternal day. 

LI. 

Do we indeed desire the dead 

Should still be near us at our side } 
Is there no baseness we would hide } 

No inner vileness that we dread '^. 

Shall he for whose applause I strove, 
I had such reverence for his blame. 
See with clear eye some hidden shame 

And I be lessened in his love.? 

I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 
Shall love be blamed for want of faith 1 
There must be wisdom with great Death 

The dead shall look me thro' and thro'. 

Be near us when we climb or fall : 
Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
With larger other eyes than ours, 

To make allowance for us all. 



LII. 1 

I cannot love thee as I ought, ] 

For love reflects the things beloved ; i 

My words are only words, and moved ] 

Upon the topmost froth of thought. " 



IN MEMOKIAM. 191 

'' Yet blame not thou thy plaintive song," 

The spirit of true love replied ; 

''Thou canst not move me from thy side, 
Nor human frailty do me wrong. 

'' What keeps a spirit wholly true 

To that ideal which he bears ? 

What record ? not the sinless years 
That breathed beneath the Syrian blue : 

" So fret not, like an idle girl. 

That life is dashed with flecks of sin. 
Abide : thy wealth is gathered in, 

When Time hath sundered shell from pearl." 

LIII. 

How many a father have I seen, 
A sober man, among his boys. 
Whose youth was full of foolish noise. 

Who wears his manhood hale and green : 

And dare we to this fancy give. 

That had the wild oat not been sown. 
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown 

The grain by which a man may live } 

Oh, if we held the doctrine sound 
For life outliving heats of youth. 
Yet who would preach it as a truth 

To those that eddy round and round } 

Hold thou the good : define it well : 
For fear divine Philosophy 
Should push beyond her mark, and be 

Procuress to the lords of Hell, 



192 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

LIV. 

Oh, yet we trust that somehow good 
Will be the final goal of ill 
To pangs of nature, sins of will, 

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; 

That nothing walks with aimless feet; 
That no one life shall be destroyed. 
Or cast as rubbish to the void. 

When God hath made the pile complete; 

That not a worm is cloven in vain; 
That not a moth with vain desire 
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire, 

Or but subserves another's gain. 

Behold, we know not any thing ; 
I can but trust that good shall fall 
At last — far off — at last, to all, 

And every winter change to spring. 

So runs my dream : but what am I } 
An infant crying in the night : 
An infant crying for the light : 

And with no language but a cry. 

LV. 

The wish, that of the living whole 
No life may fail beyond the grave, 
Derives it not from what we have 

The likest God within the soul.? 

Are God and Nature then at strife, 
That Nature lends such evil dreams ? 



IN MEMORIAM. 193 

So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life ; 

That I, considering everywhere 

Her secret meaning in her deeds, 

And finding that of fifty seeds 
She often brings but one to bear, 

I falter where I firmly trod, 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar-stairs 

That slope thro' darkness up to God, 

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope. 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all. 

And faintly trust the larger hope. 

LVI. 

" So careful of the type ? " but no. 
From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
She cries : '* A thousand types are gone : 

I care for nothing, all shall go. 

" Thou makest thine appeal to me : 
I bring to life, I bring to death : 
The spirit does but mean the breath : 

I know no more." And he, shall he, 

Man, her last work, who seemed so fair. 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes. 
Who rolled the psalm to wintry skies. 

Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer, 



19+ THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Who trusted God was love indeed 
And love Creation's final law — 
Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 

With ravine, shrieked against his creed — 

Who loved, who suffered countless ills, 
Who battled for the True, the Just, 
Be blown about the desert dust, 

Or sealed within the iron hills ? 

No more ? A monster then, a dream, 
A discord. Dragons of the prime. 
That tear each other in their slime, 

Were mellow music matched with him. 

O life as futile, then, as frail ! 

O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 

What hope of answer, or redress ? 
Behind the veil, behind the veil. 

LVII. 

Peace ; come away : the song of woe 
Is after all an earthly song : 
Peace ; come away : we do him wrong 

To sing so wildly : let us go. 

Come let us go : your cheeks are pale ; 
But half my life I leave behind : 
Methinks my friend is richly shrined; 

But I shall pass, my work will fail. 

. Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, 
One set slow bell will seem to toll 
The passing of the sweetest soul 
That ever look'd with human eyes. 



IN MEMORIAM. 195 

I hear it now, and o'er and o'er, 

Eternal greetings to the dead, / 

And ''Ave, Ave, Ave," said, / 
" Adieu, adieu," for evermore. '^ 

LVIII. 

In those sad words I took farewell: 

Like echoes in sepulchral halls, 

As drop by drop the water falls 
In vaults and catacombs, they fell; 

And, falling, idly broke the peace 
Of hearts that beat from day to day, 
Half-conscious of their dying clay. 

And those cold crypts where they shall cease. 

The high Muse answered : *' Wherefore grieve 
Thy brethren with a fruitless tear } 
Abide a little longer here. 

And thou shalt take a nobler leave." 

LIX. 

O Sorrow, wilt thou live with me, 
No casual mistress, but a wife. 
My bosom-friend and half of life ; 

As I confess it needs must be; 

O Sorrow, wilt thou rule my blood, 

Be sometimes lovely like a bride. 

And put thy harsher moods aside. 
If thou wilt have me wise and good. 

My centred passion cannot move, 
Nor will it lessen from to-day ; 



196 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

But I'll have leave at times to play 
As with the creature of my love ; 

And set thee forth, for thou art mine, 
With so much hope for years to come, 
That, howsoe'er I know thee, some 

Could hardly tell what name were thine. 

LX. 

He passed : a soul of nobler tone : 
My spirit loved and loves him yet. 
Like some poor girl whose heart is set 

On one whose rank exceeds her own. 

He mixing with his proper sphere. 
She finds the baseness of her lot, 
Half jealous of she knows not what, 

And envying all that meet him there. 

The little village looks forlorn ; 
She sighs amid her narrow days. 
Moving about the household ways. 

In that dark house where she was born. 

The foolish neighbors come and go, 
And tease her till the day draws by : 
At night she weeps, ** How vain am II 

How should he love a thing so low } " 

LXI. 

If, in thy second state sublime. 

Thy ransomed reason change replies 
With all the circle of the wise. 

The perfect flower of human time ; 



IN^MEMORIAM. 197 

And if thou cast thine eyes below, 
How dimly charactered and slight, 
How dwarfed a growth of cold and night. 

How blanched with darkness must I grow ! 

Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore. 

Where thy first form was made a man ; 
I loved thee. Spirit and love, nor can 

The soul of Shakespeare love thee more. 

LXII. 

Tho' if an eye that's downward cast 

Could make thee somewhat blench or fail, 
Then be my love an idle tale, 

And fading legend of the past ; 

And thou, as one that once declined, 
When he was little more than boy, 
On some unworthy heart with joy, 

But lives to wed an equal mind ; 

And breathes a novel world, the while 

His other passion wholly dies, 

Or in the light of deeper eyes 
Is matter for a flying smile. 

LXIII. 

Yet pity for a horse o'er-driven. 

And love in which my hound has part, 
Can hang no weight upon my heart 

In its assumptions up to heaven ; 

And I am so much more than these, 
As thou, perchance, art more than I, 



198 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And yet I spare them sympathy 
And I would set their pains at ease. 

So may'st thou watch me where I weep, 
As, unto vaster motions bound, 
The circuits of thine orbit round 

A higher height, a deeper deep. 

LXIV. 

Dost thou look back on what hath been, 
As some divinely gifted man, 
Whose life in low estate began 

And on a simple village green ; 

. Who breaks his birth's invidious bar, 

And grasps the skirts of happy chance, 
And breasts the blows of circumstance, 
And grapples with his evil star ; 

Who makes by force his merit known 
And lives to clutch the golden keys. 
To mould a mighty state's decrees. 

And shape the whisper of the throne ; 

And moving up from high to higher. 
Becomes on Fortune's crowning slope 
The pillar of a people's hope, 

The centre of a world's desire ; 

Yet feels, as in a pensive dream. 
When all his active powers are still, 
A distant dearness in the hill, 

A secret sweetness in the stream, 



IN MEAIORIAM. 199 

The limit of his narrower fate, 
While yet beside its vocal springs 
He played at counsellors and kings, 

With one that was his earliest mate ; 

Who ploughs with pain his native lea 

And reaps the labor of his hands, 

Or in the furrow musing stands : 
"■ Does my old friend remember me ? " 

LXV. 

Sweet soul, do with me as thou wilt ; 
I lull a fancy trouble-tossed 
With ''Love's too precious to be lost, 

A little grain shall not be spilt." 

And in that solace can I sing, 

Till out of painful phases wrought 
There flutters up a happy thought, 

Self-balanced on a lightsome wing : 

Since we deserved the name of friends. 

And thine effect so lives in me, 

A part of mine may live in thee 
And move thee on to noble ends. 

LXVI. 

You thought my heart too far diseased ; . 

You wonder when my fancies play 

To find me gay among the gay. 
Like one with any trifle pleased. 

The shade by which my life was crossed 
Which makes a desert in the mind. 



200 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Has made me kindly with my kind, 
And like to him whose sight is lost ; 

Whose feet are guided thro' the land, 
Whose jest among his friends is free, 
Who takes the children on his knee, 

And winds their curls about his hand : 



He plays with threads, he beats his chair 
For pastime, dreaming of the sky ; 
His inner day can never die. 

His night of loss is always there. 

LXVII. 

When on my bed the moonlight falls, 
I know that in thy place of rest. 
By that broad water of the west. 

There comes a glory on the walls : 

Thy marble bright in dark appears, 
As slowly steals a silver flame 
Along the letters of thy name, 

And o'er the number of thy years. 

The mystic glory swims away ; 

From off my bed the moonlight dies ; 

And closing eaves of wearied eyes 
I sleep till dusk is dipped in gray : 

And then I know the mist is drawn 
A lucid veil from coast to coast. 
And in the dark church like a ghost 

Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn. 



IN MEMORIAM. 20] 



LXVIII. 



When in the down I sink my head, 

Sleep, Death's twin-brother, times my breath ; 

Sleep, Death's twin-brother, knows not Death, J 

Nor can I dream of thee as dead. 

I walk as ere I walked forlorn. 

When all our path was fresh with dew, * 

And all the bugle breezes blew 

Reveillee to the breaking morn. 

"I 

But what is this t I turn about, -; 

I find a trouble in thine eye, ! 

Which makes me sad I know not why, : 
Nor can my dream resolve the doubt : 

But ere the lark hath left the lea ; 

I wake, and I discern the truth ; I 

It is the trouble of my youth \ 

That foolish sleep transfers to thee. A 

LXIX. j 

I dreamed there would be Spring no more, \ 

That Nature's ancient power w^as lost : i 

The streets were black with smoke and frost, j 

They chattered trifles at the door : j 

I wandered from the noisy town, j 

I found a wood with thorny boughs : 'i 

I took the thorns to bind my brows, \ 

I wore them like a civic crown : \ 

I met with scoffs, I met with scorns j 

From youth and babe and hoary hairs : \ 



202 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

They called me in the public squares 
The fool that wears a crown of thorns : 

They called me fool, they called me child : 
I found an angel of the night ; 
The voice was low, the look was bright ; 

He looked upon my crown and smiled : 

He reached the glory of a hand, 
That seemed to touch it into leaf: 
The voice was not the voice of grief ; 

The words were hard to understand. 



LXX. 

I cannot see the features right, 

When on the gloom I strive to paint 
The face I know ; the hues are faint 

And mix with hollow masks of night ; 

Cloud-towers by ghostly masons wrought, 
A gulf that ever shuts and gapes, 
A hand that points, and palled shapes 

In shadowy thoroughfares of thought ; 

And crowds that stream from yawning doors, 
And shoals of puckered faces drive ; 
Dark bulks that tumble half alive, 

And lazy lengths on boundless shores ; 

Till all at once beyond the will 

I hear a wizard music roll, 

And thro' a lattice on the soul 
Looks thy fair face and makes it still. 



IN MEMORIAM. 203 



LXXI. 



Sleep, kinsman thou to death and trance 
And madness, thou hast forged at last 
A night-long Present of the Past 

In which we went thro' summer France. 

Hadst thou such credit with the soul ? 
Then bring an opiate trebly strong. 
Drug down the blindfold sense of wrong 

That so my pleasure may be whole ; 

While now we talk as once we talked 
Of men and minds, the dust of change. 
The days that grow to something strange, 

In walking as of old we walked 

Beside the river's wooded reach. 

The fortress, and the mountain ridge, 
The cataract flashing from the bridge, 

The breaker breaking on the beach. 

LXXII. 

Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again. 
And howlest, issuing out of night. 
With blasts that blow the poplar white, 

And lash with storm the streaming pane } 

Day when my crowned estate begun 
To pine in that reverse of doom, 
Which sickened every living bloom. 

And blurred the splendor of the sun ; 

Who usherest in the dolorous hour 

With thy quick tears that make the rose 



204 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Pull sideways, and the daisy close \ 

Her crimson fringes to the shower ; \ 

J 
1 

Who might'st have heaved a windless flame \ 

Up the deep East, or, whispering, played ' 
A chequer-work of beam and shade 

Along the hills, yet looked the same, 

As wan, as chill, as wild as now ; ' 

Day, marked as with some hideous crime, •■ 
When the dark hand struck down thro' time 

And cancelled nature's best : but thou, ; 

Lift as thou may'st thy burdened brows ■ 

Thro' clouds that drench the morning star, : 

And whirl the ungarnered sheaf afar, j 

And sow the sky with flying boughs, \ 

And up thy vault with roaring sound \ 

Climb thy thick noon, disastrous day ; j 
Touch thy dull goal of joyless gray. 

And hide thy shame beneath the ground. 

i 

^ 

LXXIII. ; 

So many worlds, so much to do, j 

So little done, such things to be, i 
How know I what had need of thee, 

For thou wert strong as thou wert true ? j 

The fame is quenched that I foresaw, • 

The head hath missed an earthly wreath ; , 

I curse not nature, no, nor death ; ; 

For nothing is that errs from law. i 



IN MEMORIAM. 205 

We pass : the path that each man trod 
Is dim, or will be dim, with weeds : 
What fame is left for human deeds 

In endless age ? It rests with God. 

hollow wraith of dying fame, 
Fade wholly, while the soul exults, 
And self-infolds the large results 

Of force that would have forged a name. 

LXXIV. 

As sometimes in a dead man's face, 
I'o those that watch it more and more, 
A likeness, hardly seen before, 

Comes out — to some one of his race : 

So, dearest, now thy brows are cold, 
I see thee what thou art, arid know 
Thy likeness to the wise below. 

Thy kindred with the great of old. 

But there is more than I can see, 
And what I see I leave unsaid, 
Nor speak it, knowing Death has made 

His darkness beautiful with thee. 

LXXV. 

1 leave thy praises unexpressed 

In verse that brings myself relief. 
And by the measure of my grief 
I leave thy greatness to be guessed ; 

What practice howsoe'er expert 
In fitting aptest words to things, 



206 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

Or voice the richest-toned that sings, , 
Hath power to give thee as thou wert ? 

I care not in these fading days i 

To raise a cry that lasts not long, | 

And round thee with the breeze of song \ 

To stir a little dust of praise. \ 



Thy leaf has perished in the green, 

And, while we breathe beneath the sun. 
The world which credits what is done 

Is cold to all that might have been. 

So here shall silence guard thy fame ; 
But somewhere, out of human view, 
Whate'er thy hands are set to do 

Is wrought with tumult of acclaim. 

LXXVI. 

Take wings of fancy, and ascend, 
And in a moment set thy face 
Where all the starry heavens of space 

Are sharpened to a needle's end ; 

Take wings of foresight ; lighten thro' 
The secular abyss to come, 
And lo, thy deepest lays are dumb 

Before the mouldering of a yew ; 

And if the matin songs, that woke 
The darkness of our planet, last, 
Thine own shall wither in the vast, 

Ere half the lifetime of an oak. 



IN MEMORIAM. 2U7 



Ere these have clothed their branchy bowers 
With fifty Mays, thy songs are vain ; 
And what are they when these remain 

The ruined shells of hollow towers ? 

LXXVII. 

What hope is here for modern rhyme 
To him v/ho turns a musing eye 
On songs, and deeds, and lives, that lie 

Foreshortened in the tract of time ? 

These mortal lullabies of pain 
May bind a book, may line a box. 
May serve to curl a maiden's locks ; 

Or when a thousand moons shall wane 

A man upon a stall may find, 

And passing, turn the page that tells 
A grief, then changed to something else. 

Sung by a long-forgotten mind. 

But what of that ? My darkened ways 
Shall ring with music all the same : 
To breathe my loss is more than fame, 

To utter love more sweet than praise. 

LXXVIII. 

Again at Christmas did we weave 

The holly round the Christmas hearth ; 
The silent snow possessed the earth. 

And calmly fell our Christmas-eve : 

The yule-clog sparkled keen with frost, 
No wing of wind the region swept, 



208 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

But over all things brooding slept 
The quiet sense of something lost. 

As in the winters left behind, 

Again our ancient games had place, 
The mimic picture's breathing grace, 

And dance and song and hoodman-blind. 

Who showed a token of distress ? 
No single tear, no mark of pain : 
O sorrow, then can sorrow wane ? 

O grief, can grief be changed to less ? 

O last regret, regret can die ! 

No — mixed with all this mystic frame, 
Her deep relations are the same. 

But with long use her tears are dry. 



LXXIX. 

" More than my brothers are to me " — 
Let this not vex thee, noble heart ! 
I know thee of what force thou art 

To hold the costliest love in fee. 

But thou and I are one in kind. 
As moulded like in Nature's mint ; 
And hill and wood and field did print 

The same sweet forms in either mind. 

For us the same cold streamlet curled 
Thro' all his eddying coves ; the same 
All winds that roam the twilight came 

In whispers of the beauteous world. 



IN MEAIORIAM. 209 

At one dear knee we proffered vows, 
One lesson from one book we learned, 
Ere childhood's flaxen ringlet turned 

To black and brown on kindred brows. 

And so my wealth resembles thine, 
But he was rich where I was poor. 
And he supplied my want the more 

As his unlikeness fitted mine. 

LXXX. 

If any vague desire should rise, 
That holy Death ere Arthur died 
Had moved me kindly from his side. 

And dropped the dust on tearless eyes ; 

Then fancy shapes, as fancy can. 

The grief my loss in him had wrought, 
A grief as deep as life or thought. 

But stayed in peace with God and man. 

I make a picture in the brain ; 

I hear the sentence that he speaks ; 

He bears the burden of the weeks ; 
But turns his burden into gain. 

His credit thus shall set me free ; 

And, influence-rich to soothe and save, 

Unused example from the grave 
Reach out dead hands to comfort me. 

LXXXI. 

Could I have said while he was here, 
'' My love shall now no further range ; 



210 I'lIE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

There cannot come a mellower change, 
For now is love mature m ear." 

Love, then, had hope of richer store : 
What end is here to my complaint ? 
This haunting whisper makes me faint, 

" More years had made me love thee more." 

But Death returns an answer sweet : 
" My sudden frost was sudden gain. 
And gave all ripeness to the grain. 

It might have drawn from after-heat." 

LXXXII. 

I wage not any feud with Death 

For changes wrought on form and face ; 
No lower life that earth's embrace 

May breed with him, can fright my faith. 

Eternal process moving on, 

From state to state the spirit walks ; 
And these are but the shattered stalks, * 

Or ruined chrysalis of one. 

Nor blame I Death, because he bare 
The use of virtue out of earth : 
I know transplanted human worth 

Will bloom to profit, otherwhere. 

For this alone on Death I wreak 

The wrath that garners in my heart ; 
He put our lives so far apart 

We cannot hear each other speak. 



IN MEiMORIAM. 211 



LXXXIII. 



Dip down upon the northern shore, 
O sweet New-Year delaying long ; 
Thou doest expectant nature wrong ; 

Delaying long, delay no more. 

What stays thee from the clouded noons, 
Thy sweetness from its proper place ? 
Can trouble live with April days. 

Or sadness in the summer moons ? 

Bring orchis, bring the foxglove spire, 
The little speedwell's darling blue, 
Deep tulips dashed with fiery dew, 

Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire. 

thou, New-Year, delaying long, 
Delayest the sorrow in my blood, 
That longs to burst a frozen bud. 

And flood a fresher throat with song. 

LXXXIV. 

When I contemplate all alone 

The life that had been thine below. 
And fix my thoughts on all the glow 

To which thy crescent would have grown ; 

1 see thee sitting crowned with good, 
A central warmth diffusing bliss 

In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss. 
On all the branches of thy blood; 

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine ; 
For now the day was drawing on, 



212 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES, 

When thou should'st link thy Hfe with one 
Of mine own house, and boys of thine 

Had babbled '* Uncle " on my knee ; 
But that remorseless iron hour 
Made cypress of her orange flower, 

Despair of Hope, and earth of thee. 

I seem to meet their least desire. 

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine. 
I see their unborn faces shine 

Beside the never-lighted fire. 

I see myself an honored guest. 
Thy partner in the flowery walk 
Of letters, genial table-talk. 

Or deep dispute, and graceful jest; 

While now thy prosperous labor fills 
The lips of men with honest praise, 
And sun by sun the happy days 

Descend below the golden hills 

With promise of a morn as fair; 

And all the train of bounteous hours 
Conduct by paths of growing powers 

To reverence and the silver hair ; 

Till slowly worn her earthly robe, 
Her lavish mission richly wrought. 
Leaving great legacies of thought. 

Thy spirit should fail from off the globe ; 

What time mine own might also flee, 
As linked with thine in love and fate, 



IN MEMORIAAL 

And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait 
To the other shore, involved in thee, 

Arrive at last the blessed goal, 
And He that died in Holy Land 
Would reach us out the shining hand, 

And take us as a single soul. 

What reed was that on which I leant ? 
Ah, backward fancy, wherefore wake 
The old bitterness again, and break 

The low beginnings of content. 

LXXXV. 

This truth came borne with bier and pall, 
I felt it, when I sorrowed most, 
'Tis better to have loved and lost, 

Than never to have loved at all — 

O true in word, and tried in deed. 
Demanding, so to bring relief 
To this which is our common grief. 

What kind of life is that I lead ; 

And whether trust in things above 
Be dimmed of sorrow, or sustained ; 
And whether love for him have drained 

My capabilities of love ; 

Your words have virtue such as draws 
A faithful answer from the breast. 
Thro' light reproaches, half expressed, 

And loyal unto kindly laws. 



213 



214 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES, 

My blood an even tenor kept, , 

Till on mine ear this message falls, 
That in Vienna's fatal walls 

God's finger touched him, and he slept 

The great Intelligences fair 

That range above our mortal state, 
In circle round the blessed gate, 

Received and gave him welcome there ; 

And led him thro' the blissful climes. 
And showed 'him in the fountain fresh 
All knowledge that the sons of flesh 

Shall gather in the cycled times. 

But I remained, whose hopes were dim, 

Whose life, whose thoughts were little worth. 
To wander on a darkened earth, 

Where all things round me breathed of him, 

O friendship, equal-poised control, 
O heart, with kindliest motion warm, 

sacred essence, other form, 
O solemn ghost, O crowned soul ! 

Yet none could better know than I, 
How much of act at human hands 
The sense of human will demands 

By which we dare to live or die. 

Whatever way my days decline, 

1 felt and feel, tho' left alone. 
His being working in mine own, 

The footsteps of his life in mine; 



IN MEMORIAM. 215 

A life that all the Muses decked 

With gifts of grace, that might express 
All-comprehensive tenderness, 

All-subtilizing intellect : 

And so my passion hath not swerved 

To works of weakness, but I find 

An image comforting the mind. 
And in my grief a strength reserved. 

Likewise the imaginative woe. 

That loved to handle spiritual strife, 
Diffused the shock thro' all my life. 

But in the present broke the blow. 

My pulses therefore beat again 
For other friends that once I met ; 
Nor can it suit me to forget 

The mighty hopes that make us men. 

I woo your love : I count it crime 

To mourn for any overmuch ; 

I, the divided half of such 
A friendship as had mastered Time ; 

Which masters Time indeed, and is 
Eternal, separate from fears : 
The all-assuming months and years 

Can take no part away from this : 

But Summer on the steaming floods, 

And Spring that swells the narrow brooks. 
And Autumn, with a noise of rooks. 

That gather in the waning woods, 



216 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And every pulse of wind and wave 
Recalls, in change of light or gloom, 
My old affection of the tomb. 

And my prime passion in the grave : 

My old affection of the tomb, 

A part of stillness, yearns to speak : 
" Arise, and get thee forth and seek 

A friendship for the years to come. 

*' I watch thee from the quiet shore : 
Thy spirit up to mine can reach ; 
But in dear words of human speech 

We two communicate no more." 

And I, " Can clouds of nature stain 
The starry clearness of the free ? 
How is it ? Canst thou feel for me 

Some painless sympathy with pain ? " 

And lightly does the whisper fall : 
'' 'Tis hard for thee to fathom this ; 
I triumph in conclusive bliss. 

And that serene result of all." 

So hold I commerce with the dead ; 

Or so methinks the dead would say ; 

Or so shall grief with symbols play, 
And pining life be fancy-fed. 

Now looking to some settled end, 

That these things pass, and I shall prove 
A meeting somewhere, love with love, 

I crave your pardon, O my friend ; 



IN MEAIORIAM. 217 

If not SO fresh, with love as true, 

I, clasping brother-hands, aver 

I could not, if I would, transfer 
The whole I felt for him to you. 

For which be they that hold apart 

The promise of the golden hours ? 

First love, first friendship, equal powers, 
That marry with the virgin heart. 

Still mine, that cannot but deplore. 

That beats within a lonely place, 

That yet remembers his embrace, 
But at his footstep leaps no more, 

My heart, tho' widowed, may not rest 

Quite in the love of what is gone. 

But seeks to beat in time with one 
That warms another livins: breast. 



Ah, take the imperfect gift I bring, 
Knowing the primrose yet is dear. 
The primrose of the later year. 

As not unlike to that of Spring. 

LXXXVI. 

Sweet after showers, ambrosial air. 
That rollest from the gorgeous gloom 
Of evening over brake and bloom 

And meadow, slowly breathing bare 

The round of space, and rapt below 
Thro' all the dewy-tasselled wood, 
And shadowing down the horned flood 

In ripples, fan my brows and blow 



218 rilE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

i 

The fever from my cheek, and sigh \ 

The full new life that feeds thy breath ; 

Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death, j 

111 brethren, let the fancy fly ; 

From belt to belt of crimson seas j 

On leagues of odor streaming far, \ 

To where in yonder orient star • \ 

A hundred spirits whisper *' Peace." 

LXXXVII. J 

I passed beside the reverend walls 

In which of old I wore the gown ; 

I roved at random thro' the town, 
And saw the tumult of the halls ; 

And heard once more in college fanes ; 

The storm their high-built organs make, ] 

And thunder-music, rolling, shake \ 

The prophets blazoned on the panes; j 

And caught once more the distant shout, : 

The measured pulse of racing oars i 

Among the willows ; paced the shores ] 

And many a bridge, and all about J 

The same gray flats again, and felt ! 

The same, but not the same ; and last ■ 
Up that long walk of limes I passed 

To see the rooms. in which he dwelt. 

i 

Another name was on the door : ; 

I lino;ered ; all within was noise 1 
Of song, and clapping hands, and boys 

That crashed the glass and beat the floor ; ' 



IN MEMORIAM. 219 

Where once we held debate, a band 
Of youthful friends, on mind and art, 
And. labor, and the changing mart. 

And all the framework of the land ; 

When one would aim an arrow fair. 
But send it slackly from the string ; 
And one would pierce an outer ring 

And one an inner, here and there ; 

And last the master-bowman, he 

Would cleave the mark. A willing ear 
We lent him. Who, but hung to hear 

The rapt oration flowing free 

From, point to point, with power and grace 
And music in the bounds of law. 
To those conclusions when we saw 

The God within him light his face, 



And seem to lift the form, and glow 
In azure orbits heavenly-wise ; 
And over those ethereal eyes 

The bar of Michael Angelo. 



lXxxviii. 

Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet. 
Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks. 
Oh, tell me where the senses mix. 

Oh, tell me where the passions meet. 

Whence radiate : fierce extremes employ 
Thy spirits in the darkening leaf, 



220 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And in the midmost heart of grief 
Thy passion clasps a secret joy : 

And I — my harp would prelude woe — 
I cannot all command the strings ; 
The glory of the sun of things 

Will flash along the chords and go. 

LXXXIX. 

Witch-elms that counterchange the floor 
Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright : 
And thou, with all thy breadth and height 

Of foliage, towering sycamore ; 

How often, hither wandering down, . 

My Arthur found your shadows fair, 

And shook to all the liberal air 
The dust and din and steam of town : 

He brought an eye for all he saw ; 

He mixed in all our simple sports; 

They pleased him, fresh from brawling courts 
And dusty purlieus of the law. 

Oh, joy to him in this retreat, 
Immantled in ambrosial dark. 
To drink the cooler air, and mark 

The landscape winking thro' the heat : 

Oh, sound to rout the brood of cares, 
The sweep of scythe in morning dew, 
The gust that round the garden flew. 

And tumbled half the mellowing pears ! 



IN MEMORIAM. 221 ^ j 

] 

Oh, bliss, when all in circle drawn \ 

About him, heart and ear were fed j 

To hear him, as he lay and read \ 

The Tuscan poets on the lawn : • | 

i 

Or in the all-golden afternoon j 

A guest, or happy sister, sung, [ 

Or here she brought the harp and flung ; 

A ballad to the brightening moon : ! 

Nor less it pleased in livelier moods, \ 

Beyond the bounding hill to stray, ■ 

And break the livelong summer day : 

With banquet in the distant woods ; 

Whereat we glanced from theme to theme, ■ 

Discussed the books to love or hate, ' 

Or touched the changes of the state, \ 

Or threaded some Socratic dream ; ; 

\ 

But if I praised the busy town, i 

He loved to rail against it still, ; 

For ''ground in yonder social mill \ 

We rub each other's angles down, ; 

"And merge," he said, "in form and gloss .i 

The picturesque of man and man." " 

We talked : the stream beneath us ran, \ 

The wine-flask lying couched in moss, ; 

Or cooled within the glooming wave ; \ 

And last, returning from afar, j 

Before the crimson-circled star \ 

Had fall'n into her father's grave, \ 



222 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And brushing ankle-deep in flowers, 
We heard behind the woodbine veil 
The milk that bubbled in the pail, 

And buzzings of the honeyed hours. 

xc. 

He tasted love with half his mind, 
Nor ever drank the inviolate spring 
Where nighest heaven, who first could fling 

This bitter seed among mankind ; 

That could the dead, whose dying eyes 
Were closed with wail, resume their life, 
They would but find in child and wife 

An iron welcome when they rise: 

'Twas well, indeed, when warm with wine, 
To pledge them with a kindly tear. 
To talk them o'er, to wish them here, 

To count their memories half divine ; 

But if they came who passed away. 
Behold their brides in other hands; 
The hard heir strides about their lands. 

And will not yield them for a day. 

Yea, tho' their sons were none of these. 
Not less the yet-loved sire would make 
Confusion worse than death, and shake 

The pillars of domestic peace. 

Ah dear, but come thou back to me : 

Whatever change the years have wrought, 
I find not yet one lonely thought 

That cries against my wish for thee. 



IN MEMOKIAM. 223 



XCI. 



When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, 
And rarely pipes the mounted thrush ; 
Or underneath the barren bush 

Flits by the sea-blue bird of March ; 

Come, wear the form by which I know 
Thy spirit in time among thy peers. 
The hope of unaccomplish'd years 

Be large and lucid round thy brow. 

When summer's hourly-mellowing change 
May breathe, with many roses sweet, 
Upon the thousand waves of wheat, 

That ripple round the lonely grange ; 

Come : not in watches of the night. 

But when the sunbeam broodeth warm, 
Come, beauteous in thine after form, 

And like a finer light in light. 

XCII. 

If any vision should reveal 

Thy likeness, I might count it vain, 
As but the canker of the brain : 

Yea, tho' it spake and made appeal 

To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 

Of memory murmuring the past. 

Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view 
A fact within the coming year ; 



224 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. '■ 

And tho' the months, revolving near, ; 

Should prove the phantom-warning true, ' 

They might not seem thy prophecies, i 

But spiritual presentiments, ' 
And such refraction of events 

As often rises ere they rise. j 



XCIII. 

I shall not see thee. Dare I say 
No spirit ever brake the band 
That stays him from the native land. 

Where first he walked when clasped in clay.? 

No visual shade of some one lost. 

But he, the Spirit himself, may come 
Where all the nerve of sense is numb ; 

Spirit to Spirit, Ghost to Ghost. 

Oh, therefore, from thy sightless range 
With gods in unconjectured bliss, 
Oh, from the distance of the abyss 

Of tenfold-complicated change, 

Descend, and touch, and enter ; hear 
The wish too strong for words to name; 
That in this blindness of the frame 

My ghost may feel that thine is near. 

xciv. 

How pure at heart and sound in head, 

With what divine affections bold 

Should be the man whose thought would hold 
An hour's communion with the dead. 



IN MEMORIAM. 223 

In vain shalt thou, or any, call 
The spirits from their golden day, 
Except, like them, thou too canst say. 

My spirit is at peace with all. 

They haunt the silence of the breast. 

Imaginations calm and fair. 

The memory like a cloudless air, 
The conscience as a sea at rest : 

But when the heart is full of din. 

And doubt beside the portal waits. 

They can but listen at the gates, 
And hear the household jar within. 

xcv. 

By night we lingered on the lawn. 

For underfoot the herb was dry ; 

And genial warmth ; and o'er the sky 
The silvery haze of summer drawn ; 

And calm that let the tapers burn 
Unwavering : not a cricket chirred ; 
The brook alone far off was heard, 

And on the board the fluttering urn : 

And bats went round in fragrant skies. 
And wheeled or lit the filmy shapes 
That haunt the dusk, with ermine capes 

And woolly breasts and beaded eyes ; 

While now we sang old songs that pealed 
From knoll to knoll, where, couched at ease, 



226 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 
Laid their dark arms about the field. 

But when those others, one by one, 

Withdrew themselves from me and night, 
And in the house light after light 

Went out, and I was all alone, 

A hunger seized my heart ; I read 

Of that glad year which once had been. 

In those fall'n leaves which kept their green, 

The noble letters of the dead : 

And strangely on the silence broke 

The silent-speaking words, and strange 
Was love's dumb cry defying change 

To test his worth ; and strangely spoke 

The faith, the vigor, bold to dwell 

On doubts that drive the coward back. 
And keen thro' wordy snares to track 

Suggestion to her inmost cell. 

So word by word, and line by line. 

The dead man touched me from the past. 
And all at once it seemed at last 

His living soul was flashed on mine. 

And mine in his was wound, and whirled 
About empyreal heights of thought. 
And came on that which is, and caught 

The deep pulsations of the world, 

iEonian music measuring out 

The steps of Time, the shocks of Chance, 



IN MEMORIAM. Ill 

The blows of Death. At length my trance 
Was cancelled, stricken thro' with doubt. 

Vague words ! but ah, how hard to frame 
In matter-moulded forms of speech. 
Or ev'n for intellect to reach 

Thro' memory that which I became : 

Till now the doubtful dusk revealed 

The knoll once more where, couched at ease, 
The white kine glimmer'd, and the trees 

Laid their dark arms about the field : 

And, sucked from out the distant gloom, 

A breeze began to tremble o'er 

The large leaves of the sycamore, 
And fluctuate all the still perfume. 

And gathering freshlier overhead, 

Rocked the full-foliaged elms, and swung 
The heavy-folded rose, and flung 

The lilies to and fro, and said 

" The dawn, the dawn ! " and died away ; 
And East and West, without a breath, 
Mixed their dim lights, like life and death, 

To broaden into boundless day. 

xcvi. 

You say, but with no touch of scorn. 

Sweet-hearted, you, whose light blue eyes 
Are tender over drowning flies, 

You tell me, doubt is devil-born. 



228 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

I know not : one indeed I knew 
In many a subtle question versed, 
Who touched a jarring lyre at first, 

But ever strove to make it true : 

Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds. 

At last he beat his music out. 

There lives more faith in honest doubt, ' 
Believe me, than in half the creeds. 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength. 
He would not make his judgment blind, 
He faced the spectres of the mind 

And laid them : thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own ; 

And power was with him in the night. 
Which makes the darkness and the light, 

And dwells not in the light alone, 

But in the darkness and the cloud. 
As over Sinai's peaks of old, 
While Israel made their gods of gold, 

Altho' the trumpet blew so loud. 

XCVII. 

My love has talked with rocks and trees ; 
He finds on misty mountain-ground 
His own vast shadow glory-crowned ; 

He sees himself in ^11 he sees. 

Two partners of a married life — 

I looked on these and thought of thee 
In vastness and in mystery. 

And of my spirit as of a wife. 



IN MEMORIAM. 11^ 

These two — they dwelt with eye on eye, 
Their hearts of old have beat in tune, 
Their meetings made December June, 

Their every parting was to die. 

Their love has never passed away ; 

The days she never can forget 

Are earnest that he loves her yet, 
Whate'er the faithless people say. 

Her life is lone, he sits apart, 

He loves her yet, she will not weep, 
Tho' rapt in matters dark and deep 

He seems to slight her simple heart. 

He threads the labyrinth of the mind. 

He reads the secret of the star. 

He seems so near and yet so far. 
He looks so cold : she thinks him kind. 

She keeps the gift of years before, 

A withered violet is her bliss ; 

She knows not what his greatness is : 
For that, for all, she loves him more. 

For him she plays, to him she sings 

Of early faith and plighted vows ; 

She knows but matters of the house, 
And he, he knows a thousand things. 

Her faith is fixed and cannot move. 
She darkly feels him great and wise. 
She dwells on him with faithful eyes, 

" I cannot understand ; I love." 



230 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

XCVIII. 

You leave us : you will see the Rhine, 
And those fair hills I sailed below, 
When I was there with him ; and go 

By summer belts of wheat and vine 

To where he breathed his latest breath 
That city. All her splendor seems 
No livelier than the wisp that gleams 

On Lethe in the eyes of Death. ! 

Let her great Danube rolling fair ' 

Enwind her isles, unmarked of me : : 

I have not seen, I will not see , 

Vienna ; rather dream that there, i 

.1 

A treble darkness, Evil haunts ' ; 

The birth, the bridal ; friend from friend ! 

Is oftener parted, fathers bend . 

Above more graves, a thousand wants j 

Gnarr at the heels of men, and prey ; 

By each cold hearth, and sadness flings \ 

Her shadow on the blaze of kings : 

And yet myself have heard him say, \ 

That not in any mother town i 

With statelier progress to and fro I 

The double tides of chariots flow j 

By park and suburb under brown ' 

Of lustier leaves ; no more content, j 

He told me, lives in any crowd, j 

When all is gay with lamps, and loud \ 

With sport and song, in booth and tent. 



IN MEMORIAAI. 231 

Imperial halls, or open plain ; 

And wheels the circled dance, and breaks 

The rocket molten into flakes 
Of crimson or in emerald rain. 

xcix. 

Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, 
So loud with voices of the birds. 
So thick with lowing of the herds. 

Day, when I lost the flower of men ; 

Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red 
On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast 
By meadows breathing of the past. 

And woodlands holy to the dead ; 

Who murmurest in the foliaged eaves 
A song that slights the coming care. 
And Autumn laying here and there 

A fiery finger on the leaves ; 

Who wakenest with thy balmy breath 

To myriads on the genial earth, 

Memories of bridal, or of birth. 
And unto myriads more, of death. 

Oh, wheresoever those may be. 
Betwixt the slumber of the poles, 
To-day they count as kindred souls ; 

They know me not, but mourn with me. 

c. 

I climb the hill ; from end to end 
Of all the landscape underneath. 



232 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

I find no place that does not breathe 
Some gracious memory of my friend ; 

No gray old grange, or lonely fold, 
Or low morass and whispering reed. 
Or simple stile from mead to mead. 

Or sheepwalk up the windy wold; 

Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw 
That hears the latest linnet trill, 
Nor quarry trenched along the hill, 

And haunted by the wrangling daw ; 

Nor runlet tinkling from the rock; 
Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves 
To left and right thro' meadowy curves, 

That feed the mothers of the flock ; 

But each has pleased a kindred eye, 
And each reflects a kindlier day ; 
And, leaving these, to pass away, 

I think once more he seems to die. 

CI. 

Unwatched, the garden bough shall sway, 
The tender blossom flutter down 
Unloved, 'that beech will gather brown. 

This maple burn itself away ; 

Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, 
Ray round with flames her disk of seed. 
And many a rose-carnation feed 

With summer spice the humming air ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 

Unloved, by many a sandy bar, 

The brook shall babble down the plain, 
At noon, or when the lesser wain 

Is twisting round the polar star ; 

Uncared for, gird the windy grove, 

And flood the haunts of hern and crake ; 
Or into silver arrows break 

The sailing moon in creek and cove ; 

Till from the garden and the wild 

A fresh association blow. 

And year by year the landscape grow 
Familiar to the stranger's child ; 

As year by year the laborer tills 

His wonted glebe, or lops the glades ; 
And year by year our memory fades 

From all the circle of the hills. 



CII. 

We leave the well-beloved place 

Where first we gazed upon the sky ; 
The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, 

Will shelter one of stranger race. 

We go, but ere we go from home. 
As down the garden-walks I move. 
Two spirits of a diverse love 

Contend for loving masterdom. 

One whispers, " Here thy boyhood sung 
Long since its matin song, and heard 



233 



234 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

The low love-language of the bird 
In native hazels tassel-hung." 

The other answers, *' Yea, but here 
Thy feet have strayed in after hours 
With thy lost friend among the bowers, 

And this hath made them trebly dear." 

These two have striven half the day, 
And each prefers his separate claim. 
Poor rivals in a losing game. 

That will not yield each other way. 

I turn to go ; my feet are set 

To leave the pleasant fields and farms; 

They mix in one another's arms 
To one pure image of regret. 

cm. 

On that last night before we went 

From out the doors where I was bred, 
I dreamed a vision of the dead, 

Which left my after-morn content. 

Methousrht I dwelt within a hall, 
And maidens with me : distant hills 
From hidden summits fed with rills 

A river sliding by the wall. 

The hall with harp and carol rang. 
They sang of what is wise and good 
And graceful. In the centre stood 

A statue veiled, to which they sang ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 235 

And which, tho' veil'd, was known to me, 
The shape of him I loved, and love 
For ever : then flew in a dove 

And brought a summons from the sea : 

And when they learned that I must go 
They wept and wailed, but led the way 
To where a little shallop lay 

At anchor in the flood below ; 

And on by many a level mead. 

And shadowing bluff that made the banks. 

We glided winding under ranks 
Of iris, and the golden reed ; 

And still as vaster grew the shore. 

And rolled the floods in grander space. 
The maidens gathered strength and grace 

And presence, lordlier than before ; 

And I myself, who sat apart 

And watch'd them, waxed in every limb ; 

I felt the thews of Anakim, 
The pulses of a Titan's heart ; 

As one would sing the death of war, 

And one would chant the history 

Of that great race, which is to be, 
And one the shaping of a star ; 

Until the forward-creeping tides 
Began to foam, and we to draw 
From deep to deep, to where we saw 

A great ship lift her shining sides. 



236 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

The man we loved was there on deck, \ 

But thrice as large as man he bent \ 

To greet us. Up the side I went, '^ 

And fell in silence on his neck : j 

'i 

Whereat those maidens with one mind \ 

Bewailed their lot ; I did them wrong : ] 
" We served thee here," they said, '' so long, \ 

And wilt thou leave us now behind ? " \ 

So rapt I was, they could not win 3 

An answer from my lips, but he -j 
Replying " Enter likewise ye 

And go with us : " they entered in. J 

And while the wind began to sweep \ 

A music out of sheet and shroud, ; 

We steered her toward a crimson cloud : 

That land-hke slept along the deep. 

CIV. \ 

^ The time draws near the birth of Christ ; .■ 

The moon is hid, the night is still ; : 

A single church below the hill 

Is pealing, folded in the mist. \ 

\ 

A single peal of bells below, ■ 

That wakens at this hour of rest 1 

A single murmur in the breast, "i 

That these are not the bells I know. ' 

I 

Like strangers' voices here they sound. 
In lands where not a memory strays. 

Nor landmark breathes of other days, \ 

But all is new unhallowed ground. ; 



IN MEMORIAM. 237 

cv. 

To-night ungathered let us leave 
This laurel, let this holly stand : 
We live within the stranger's land, 

And strangely falls our Christmas eve. 

Our father's dust is left alone 
And silent under other snows : 
There in due time the woodbine blows. 

The violet comes, but we are gone. 

No more shall wayward grief abuse 
The genial hour with mask and mime ; 
For change of place, like growth of time, 

Has broke the bond of dying use. 

Let cares that petty shadows cast. 

By which our lives are chiefly proved, 
A little spare the night I loved, 

And hold it solemn to the past. 

But let no footsteps beat the floor. 

Nor bowl of wassail mantle warm ; 

For who would keep an ancient form 
Thro' which the spirit breathes no more t 

Be neither song, nor game, nor feast ; 

Nor harp be touched, nor flute be blown ; 

No dance, no motion, save alone 
What lightens in the lucid east 

Of rising worlds by yonder wood. 

Long sleeps the summer in the seed ; 

Run out your measured arcs, and lead 
The closing cycle rich in good. 



238 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

CVI. 

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky. 
The flying cloud, the frosty light : 
The year is dying in the night : 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new. 
Ring, happy bells, across the snow : 
The year is going, let him go ; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind. 
For those that here we see no more ; 
Ring out the feud of rich and poor. 

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause. 

And ancient forms of party strife ; 
Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 
The faithless coldness of the times ; 
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes. 

But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 
The civic slander and the spite ; 
Ring in the love of truth and right. 

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease ; 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold ; 

Ring out the thousand wars of old, 
Ring in the thousand years of peace. 



IN AlEiMORIAM. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 
The larger heart, the kindlier hand ; 
Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

CVII. 

It is the day when he was born, 

A bitter day that early sank 

Behind a purple-frosty bank 
Of vapor, leaving night forlorn. 

The time admits not flowers or leaves 
To deck the banquet. Fiercely flies 
The blast of North and East, and ice 

Makes daggers at the sharpened eaves. 

And bristles all the brakes and thorns 
To yon hard crescent, as she hangs 
About the wood which grides and clangs 

Its leafless ribs and iron horns 

Together in the drifts that pass 

To darken on the rolling brine 

That breaks the coast. But fetch the wine, 
Arrange the board and brim the glass ; 

Bring in great logs and let them lie, 

To make a solid core of heat ; 

Be cheerful-minded, talk and treat 
Of all things ev'n as he were by ; 

We keep the day. With festal cheer, 
With books and music, surely we 
Will drink to him, whate'er he be. 

And sing the songs he loved to hear. 



239 



240 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

1 

CVIII. , ■ 

I will not shut me from my kind, ] 

And, lest I stiffen into stone, • j 

I will not eat my heart alone, \ 

Nor feed with sighs a passing wind : • 

What profit lies in barren faith, \ 

And vacant yearning, tho' with might 
To scale the heaven's highest height, \ 

Or dive below the wells of Death ? 

What find I in the highest place, j 

But mine own phantom chanting hymns ? j 

And on the depths of death there swims \ 

The reflex of a human face. ' 

I'll rather take what fruit may be ; 

Of sorrow under human skies : 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise, j 

Whatever wisdom sleep with thee. \ 

CIX. J 

Heart-affluence in discursive talk ■ 

From household fountains never dry ; j 

The critic clearness of an eye, ' 

That saw thro' all the Muses' walk ; | 

Seraphic intellect and force \ 

To seize and throw the doubts of man ; \ 

Impassioned logic, which outran \ 

The hearer in its fiery course ; j 

High nature amorous of the good, \ 

But touched with no ascetic gloom ; : 



IN MEMOKIAM. 241 

And passion pure in snowy bloom 
Thro' all the years of April blood ; 

A love of freedom rarely felt, 
Of freedom in her regal seat 
Of England ; not the schoolboy heat, 

The blind hysterics of the Celt > 

And manhood fused with female grace 
In such a sort, the child would twine 
A trustful hand, unasked, in thine, 

And find his comfort in thy face ; 

All these have been, and thee mine eyes 
Have looked on : if they looked in vain, 
My shame is greater who remain. 

Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 

ex. 

Thy converse drew us with delight, 
The men of rathe and riper years : 
The feeble soul a haunt of fears. 

Forgot his weakness in thy sight. 

On thee the loyal-hearted hung. 

The i^roud was half disarmed of pride, 
Nor cared the serpent at thy side 

To flicker with his double tongue. 

The stern were mild when thou wert by. 
The flippant put himself to school 
And heard thee, and the brazen fool 

Was softened, and he knew not why ; 



242 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

While I, thy dearest, sat apart, 

And felt thy triumph was as mine ; 

And loved them more, that they were thine, 

The graceful tact, the Christian art ; 

Not mine the sweetness or the skill, 
But miije the love that will not tire, 
And, born of love, the vague desire 

That spurs an imitative will. 

CXI. 

The churl in spirit, up or down 
Along the scale of ranks, thro' all. 
To him who grasps a golden ball. 

By blood a king, at heart a clown ; 

The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil 
His want in forms for fashion's sake 
Will let his coltish nature break 

At seasons thro' the gilded pale : 

For who can always act ? but he. 
To whom a thousand memories call. 
Not being less but more than all 

The gentleness he seemed to be. 

Best seemed the thing he was, and joined 
Each office of the social hour 
To noble manners, as the flower 

And native growth of noble mind ; 

Nor ever narrowness or spite, 
Or villain fancy fleeting by. 
Drew in the expression of an eye, 

Where God and Nature met in light; 



IN MEMORIAM. 243 

And thus he bore without abuse 
The grand old name of gentleman, 
Defamed by every charlatan, 

And soiled with all ignoble use. 

CXII. 

High wisdom holds my wisdom less. 
That I, who gaze with temperate eyes 
On glorious insufficiencies, 

Set light by narrow perfectness. 

But thou, that fillest all the room 

Of all my love, art reason why 

I seem to cast a careless eye 
On souls, the lesser lords of doom. 

For what wert thou } some novel power 
Sprang up for ever at a touch. 
And hope could never hope too much. 

In watching thee from hour to hour. 

Large elements in order brought. 

And tracts of calm from tempest made. 
And world-wide fluctuation swayed. 

In vassal tides that followed thought. 

CXIII. 

'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise ; 

Yet how much wisdom sleeps with thee 

Which not alone had guided me. 
But served the seasons that may rise ; 

For can I doubt, who knew the keen 
In intellect, with force and skill 



244 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

To strive, to fashion, to fulfil — j 

I doubt not what thou wouldst have been : i 

-I 

A life in civic action warm, i 

A soul on highest mission sent, | 

A potent voice of Parliament, ] 

A pillar steadfast in the storm, \ 

Should licensed boldness gather force, j 
Becoming, when the time has birth, 

A lever to uplift the earth ; 

And roll it in another course. 

With thousand shocks that come and go, 
With agonies, with energies. 

With overthrowings, and with cries, ■ 

And undulations to and fro. 

■j 

CXIV. i 

i 

Who loves not Knowledge ? Who shall rail 

Against her beauty ? May she mix ; 
With men and prosper ! Who shall fix 

Her pillars ? Let her work prevail. i 

But on her forehead sits a fire : \ 

She sets her forward countenance j 

And leaps into the future chance, is 

Submitting all things to desire. 

Half-grown as yet, a child, and vain — ' 

She cannot fight the fear of death. : 

What is she, cut from love and faith, 1 

But some wild Pallas from the brain 



IN MEMORIAM. 245 

Of demons ? fiery-hot to burst 
All barriers in her onward race 
For power. Let her know her place ; 

She is the second, not the first. 

A higher hand must make her mild, 
If all be not in vain ; and guide 
Her footsteps, moving side by side 

With wisdom, like the younger child : 

For she is earthly of the mind. 

But Wisdom heavenly of the soul. 

O friend, who camest to thy goal 
So early, leaving me behind, 

I would the great world grew like thee, 
Who grewest not alone in power 
And knowledge, but by year and hour 

In reverence and in charity. 

cxv. 

Now fades the last long streak of snow. 
Now bourgeons every maze of quick 
About the flowering squares, and thick 

By ashen roots the violets blow. 

Now rings the woodland loud and long, 
The distance takes a lovelier hue, 
And drowned in yonder living blue 

The lark becomes a sightless song. 

Now dance the lights on lawn and lea, 
The flocks are whiter down the vale, 
And milkier every milky sail 

On winding stream or distant sea ; 



246 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. ! 

Where now the seamew pipes, or dives \ 

In yonder greening gleam, and fly j 

The happy birds, that change their sky j 

To build and brood ; that live their lives j 

From land to land ; and in my breast ; 

Spring wakens too ; and my regret | 

Becomes an April violet, i 

And buds and blossoms like the rest. \ 

CXVI. i 

Is it, then, regret for buried time j 
That keenlier in sweet April wakes, 

And meets the year, and gives and takes \ 

The colors of the crescent prime ? i 

Not all : the songs, the stirring air, ■ 

The life re-orient out of dust, 

Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust ^ 
In that which made the world so fair. 

Not all regret ; the face will shine ^ 

Upon me, while I muse alone ; 5 

And that dear voice, I once have known, j 

Still speak to me of me and mine : I 



Yet less of sorrow lives in me 

For days of happy commune dead ; 
Less yearning for the friendship fled 

Than some strong bond which is to be. 



CXVII. 



O days and hours, your work is this, 
To hold me from my proper place, 



IN MEMORIAM. 2^7 

A little while from his embrace, 
For fuller gain of after bliss : 

That out of distance might ensue 

Desire of nearness doubly sweet ; 

And unto meeting when we meet, 
Delight a hundredfold accrue. 

For every grain of sand that runs, 
And every span of shade that steals. 
And every kiss of toothed wheels, 

And all the courses of the suns. 

CXVIII. 

Contemplate all this work of Time, 

The giant laboring in his youth ; 

Nor dream of human love and truth, 
As dying nature's earth and lime ; 

But trust that those we call the dead 

Are breathers of an ampler day 

For ever nobler ends. They say, 
The solid earth whereon we tread 

In tracts of fluent heat began, 

And grew to seeming-random forms, 
The seeming prey of cyclic storms. 

Till at the last arose the man ; 

Who throve and branched from clime to clime, 

The herald of a higher race. 

And of himself in higher place 
If so he type this work of time 



248 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Within himself, from more to more, 
Or, crowned with attributes of woe 
Like glories, move his course and show 

That life is not as idle ore. 

But iron dug from central gloom, 
And heated hot with burning fears. 
And dipped in baths of hissing tears, 

And battered with the shocks of doom 

To shape and use. Arise and fly 
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast ; 
Move upward, working out the beast; 

And let the ape and tiger die. 

cxix. 

Doors, where my heart was used to beat 
So quickly, not as one that weeps 
I come once more ; the city sleeps ; 

I smell the meadow in the street ; 

I hear a chirp of birds ; I see 

Betwixt the black fronts long-withdrawn 
A light-blue lane of early dawn, 

And think of early days and thee. 

And bless thee, for thy lips are bland 
And bright the friendship of thine eye ; 
And in my thoughts with scarce a sigh 

I take the pressure of thine hand. 

cxx. 

I trust I have not wasted breath : 
I think we are not wholly brain, 



IN MEMORIAM. 249 

Magnetic mockeries ; not in vain, 
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death ; 

Not only cunning casts in clay : 

Let Science prove we are, and then 
What matters Science unto men. 

At least to me ? I would not stay. 

Let him, the wiser man who springs 
Hereafter, up from childhood shape 
His action like the greater ap^. 

But I was born to other things. 

cxxi. 

Sad Hesper o'er the buried sun 

And ready, thou, to die with him, 

Thou watchest all things ever dim 
And dimmer, and a glory done : 

The team is loosened from the wain, 
The boat is drawn upon the shore ; 
Thou listenest to the closing door, 

And life is darkened in the brain. 

Bright Phosphor, fresher for the night, 
By thee the world's great work is heard 
Beginning, and the wakeful bird ; 

Behind thee comes the greater light : 

The market boat is on the stream. 

And voices hail it from the brink ; 

Thou hear'st the village hammer clink. 
And see'st the moving of the team. 



250 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

Sweet Hesper-Phosphor, double name ; 

For what is one, the first, the last, \ 

Thou, like my present and my past, ' 

Thy place is changed ; thou art the same. ' 

CXXII. 

I 
Oh, wast thou with me, dearest, then, 

While I rose up against my doom, : 

And yearned to burst the folded gloom, '^ 

To bare the eternal Heavens again, \ 



To feel once more, in placid awe, 
The strong imagination roll 
A sphere of stars about my soul, 

In all her motion one with law ; 

If thou wert with me, and the grave 
Divide us not, be with me now, 
And enter in at breast and brow, 

Till all my blood, a fuller wave, 

Be quickened with a livelier breath. 
And like an inconsiderate boy. 
As in the former flash of joy, 

I slip the thoughts of life and death ; 

And all the breeze of Fancy blows. 
And every dew-drop paints a bow, 
The wizard lightnings deeply glow. 

And every thought breaks out a rose. 

CXXIII. 

There rolls the deep where grew the tree. 
O earth, what changes hast thou seen ! 



IN JMEMORIAAI. 251 

There where the long street roars, hath been 
The stillness of the central sea. 

The hills are shadows, and they flow 

From form to form, and nothing stands; 
They melt like mist, the solid lands. 

Like clouds they shape themselves and go. 

But in my spirit will I dwell. 

And dream my dream, and hold it true ; 

For tho' my lips may breathe adieu, 
I cannot think the thing farewell. 

cxxiv. 

That which we dare invoke to bless ; 

Our dearest faith ; our ghastliest doubt ; 

He, They, One, All ; within, without ; 
The Power in darkness whom we guess; 

I found Him not in world or sun, 

Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye ; 

Nor thro' the questions men may try, 
The petty cobwebs we have spun : 

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep, 
I heard a voice '' believe no more " 
And heard an ever breaking shore 

That tumbled in the Godless deep ; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 
The freezing reason's colder part. 
And like a man in wrath the heart 

Stood up and answered "■ I have felt." 



252 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

No, like a child in doubt and fear : 
But that blind clamor made me wise ; 
Then was I as a child that cries, 

But, crying, knows his father near; 

And what I am beheld again 

What is, and no man understands ; 
And out of darkness came the hands 

That reach thro' nature, moulding men. 

cxxv. 

Whatever I have said or sung. 

Some bitter notes my harp would give, 
Yea, tho' there often seem'd to live 

A contradiction on the tongue. 

Yet Hope had never lost her youth ; 

She did but look through dimmer eyes ; 

Or Love but played with gracious lies, 
Because he felt so fixed in truth : 

And if the song were full of care, 
He breathed the spirit of the song ; 
And if the words were sweet and strong. 

He set his royal signet there ; 

Abiding with me till I sail 

To seek thee on the mystic deeps. 
And this electric force, that keeps 

A thousand pulses dancing, fail. 

cxxvi. 

Love is and was my lord and king, 
And in his presence I attend 



IN MEMORIAM. 253 

To hear the tidings of my friend, 
Which every hour his couriers bring. 

Love is and was my king and lord, 
And will be, tho' as yet I keep 
Within his court on earth, and sleep 

Encompassed by his faithful guard, 

And hear at times a sentinel 

Who moves about from place to place, 
And whispers to the worlds of space, 

In the deep night, that all is well. 

cxxvii. 

And all is well, tho' faith and form 

Be sundered in the night of fear ; 

Well roars the storm to those that hear 
A deeper voice across the storm, 



Proclaiming social truth shall spread, 
And justice, ev'n tho' thrice again 
The red fool-fury of the Seine 

Should pile her barricades with dead. 

But ill for him that wears a crown, 
And him, the lazar, in his rags : 
They tremble, the sustaining crags ; 

The spires of ice are toppled down, 

And molten up, and roar in flood; 
The fortress crashes from on high. 
The brute earth lightens to the sky, 

And the great ^on sinks in blood, 



50.111 I 



254 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

And compass'd by the fires of Hell; 
While thou, dear sj^irit, happy star, 
O'erlook'st the tumult from afar, 

And smilest, knowing all is well. 

CXXVIII. 

The love that rose on stronger wings, 
Unpalsied when he met v/ith Death, 
Is comrade of the lesser faith 

That sees the course of human things. 

No doubt vast eddies in the flood 
Of onward time shall yet be made, 
And throned races may degrade ; 

Yet, O ye mysteries of good, 

Wild hours that fly with hope and fear. 
If all your office had to do 
With old results that look like new ; 

If this were all your mission here. 

To draw, to sheathe a useless sword, 
To fool the crowd with glorious lies, 
To cleave a creed in sects and cries, 

To change the bearing of a word. 

To shift an arbitrary power. 

To cramp the student at his desk. 
To make old bareness jDicturesque 

And tuft with grass a feudal tower; 

Why then my scorn might well descend 
On you and yours. I see in part 
That all, as in some piece of art. 

Is toil cooperant to an end. 



IN MEMORIAM. Z55 



CXXIX. 



Dear friend, far off, my lost desire, 
So far, so near in woe and weal ; 
Oh loved the most, when most I feel 

There is a lower and a higher ; 

Known and unknown ; human, divine ; 

Sweet human hand and lips and eye; 

Dear heavenly friend that canst not die, 
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine ; 

Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 

Love deeplier, darklier understood ; 

Behold, I dream a dream of good. 
And mingle all the world with thee. 

cxxx. 

Thy voice is on the rolling air ; 

I hear thee where the waters run'; 

Thou standest in the rising sun. 
And in the setting thou art fair. 

What art thou then ? I cannot guess ; 
But tho' I seem in star and flower 
To feel thee some diffusive power, 

I do not therefore love thee less : 

My love involves the love before; 

My love is vaster passion now ; 

Tho' mix'd with God and Nature thou, 
I seem to love thee more and more. 

Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 
I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 



256 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

I prosper, circled with thy voice ; 
I shall not lose thee tho' I die. 

CXXXI. 

O living will that shalt endure 

When all that seems shall suffer shock, 
Rise in the spirit-ual rock. 

Flow thro' our deeds and make them pure. 

That we may lift from out of dust 
A voice as unto him that hears, 
A cry above the conquered years 

To one that with us works, and trust, 

With faith that comes of self-control. 
The truths that never can be proved 
Until we close with all we loved. 

And all we flow from, soul in soul. 



O true and tried, so well and long. 

Demand not thou a marriage lay ; 

In that it is thy marriage day 
Is music more than any song. 

Nor have I felt so much of bliss 
Since first he told me that he loved 
A daughter of our house ; nor proved 

Since that dark day a day like this ; 

Tho' I since then have numbered o'er 

Some thrice three years : they went and came, 
Remade the blood and changed the frame, 

And yet is love not less, but more ; 



IN MEM OKI AM. 257 

No longer caring to embalm 

In dying songs a dead regret, 

But like a statue solid-set, 
And moulded in colossal calm. 

Regret is dead, but love is more 

Than in the summers that are flown, 
For I myself with these have grown 

To something greater than before ; 

Which makes appear the songs I made 
As echoes out of weaker times. 
As half but idle brawling rhymes, 

The sport of random sun and shade. 

But where is she, the bridal flower, 
That must be made a wafe ere noon ? 
She enters, glowing like the moon 

Of Eden on its bridal bower : 

On me she bends her blissful eyes 

And then on thee; they meet thy look 
And brighten like the star that shook 

Betwixt the palms of paradise. 

Oh, when her life was yet in bud. 

He too foretold the perfect rose. 

For thee she grew, for thee she grows 
For ever, and as fair as good. 

And thou art w^orthy ; full of power ; 
As gentle ; liberal-minded, great, 
Consistent ; wearing all that weight 

Of learning lightly like a flower. 



258 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

But now set out : the noon is near, 
And I must give away the bride ; 
She fears not, or with thee beside 

And me behind her, will not fear : 

For I that danced her on my knee, 
That watched her on her nurse's arm. 
That shielded all her life from harm. 

At last must part with her to thee ; 

Now waiting to be made a wife, 
^ Her feet, my darling, on the dead ; 

Their pensive tablets round her head 



And the most living words of life ■ 

Breathed in her ear. The ring is on, j 

The ''wilt thou" answer'd, and again j 
The " wilt thou " asked till out of twain 

Her sweet " I will " has made ye one. \ 

Now sign your names, which shall be read, | 

Mute symbols of a joyful morn, \ 

By village eyes as yet unborn ; 

The names are signed, and overhead 



Begins the clash and clang that tells 
The joy to every wandering breeze ; 
The blind wall rocks, and on the trees 

The dead leaf trembles to the bells. 

Oh, happy hour, and happier hours 
Await them. Many a merry face 
Salutes them — maidens of the place. 

That pelt us in the porch with flowers. 



IN MEMORIAM. 259 

Oh, happy hour, behold the bride 
With him to whom her hand I gave. 
They leave the porch, they pass the grave 

That has to-day its sunny side. 

To-day the grave is bright for me, 
For them the light of life increased, 
Who stay to share the morning feast 

Who rest to-night beside the sea. 

Let all my genial spirits advance 

To meet and greet a whiter sun ; 

My drooping memory will not shun 
The foaming grape of eastern France. 

It circles round, and fancy plays. 

And hearts are warmed, and faces bloom, 
As drinking health to bride and groom 

We wish them store of happy days. 

Nor count me all to blame if I 
Conjecture of a stiller guest, 
Perchance, perchance, among the rest, 

And, tho' in silence, wishing joy. 

But they must go, the time draws on. 
And those white-favored horses wait ; 
They rise, but linger ; it is late; 

Farewell, we kiss, and they are gone. 

A shade falls on us like the dark 

From little cloudlets on the grass, 

But sweeps away as out we pass 
To range the woods, to roam the park, 



260 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Discussing how their courtship grew, 
And talk of others that are wed, 
And how she looked, and what he said. 

And back we come at fall of dew. 

Again the feast, the speech, the glee, 

The shade of passing thought, the wealth 
Of words and wit, the double health. 

The crowning cup, the three-times-three, 

And last the dance ; — till I retire ; 

Dumb is that tower which spake so loud. 
And high in heaven the streaming cloud, 

And on the downs a rising fire : 

And rise, O moon, from yonder down 
Till over down and over dale 
All night the shining vapor sail 

And pass the silent-lighted town. 

The white-faced halls, the glancing rills. 
And catch at every mountain head. 
And o'er the friths that branch and spread 

Their sleeping silver thro' the hills ; 

And touch with shade the bridal doors, 
With tender gloom the roof, the wall ; 
And breaking let the splendor fall 

To spangle all the happy shores 

By which they rest, and ocean sounds, 
And, star and system rolling past, 
A soul shall draw from out the vast 

And strike his being into bounds, 



IN MEMORIAM. 261 

And, moved thro' life of lower phase, 

Result in man, be born and think, 

And act and love, a closer link 
Betwixt us and the crowning race 

Of those that, eye to eye, shall look 

On knowledge ; under whose command I 

Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand \ 

Is Nature Hke an open book ; \ 

I 

1 

No longer half-akin to brute, j 

For all we thought and loved and did, j 

And hoped, and suffered, is but seed ' 

Of what in them is flower and fruit ; 

Whereof the man, that with me trod j 

This planet, was a noble type \ 

Appearing ere the times were ripe, ■ 

That friend of mine who lives in God, \ 

That God, which ever lives and loves, J 

One God, one law, one element, I 

And one far-off divine event. 

To which the whole creation moves. 



NOTES. 

The Author. \ 

Alfred Tennyson was born in 1809 at Somersby, Lincolnshire, England. \ 
He was educated at home, by his father, and at Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge. His first volume of poetry was published in 1830. Upon the I 
death of Wordsworth in 1850, he was appointed poet-laureate. In 1883 i 
he was made Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Freshwater. He died "^ 
October 6, 1892. His principal poems are The Idylls of the King^ In '• 



262 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Memoriani, The Princess, Maud, Locksley Hall, Enoch Arden, and several 
poetical dramas. 

The Subject. 

Arthur Henry Hallam, in whose memory this poem was written, was 
the son of Henry Hallam, the distinguished historian. He was born in 
1811, and therefore was by two years the junior of Tennyson. With the 
latter, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. At a very early 
age he translated the sonnets of Dante's Vita Nnova, and wrote memoirs 
of Petrarch, Voltaire, and Burke, and a drama on the life of Raphael. 
These were published after his death in a volume of memoirs edited by 
his father. He died in Vienna, September 15, 1833. 

The Poem. 

It is analogous to a series of sonnets, and is composed of 133 "short 
swallow-flights of song." The metre is the same throughout, — a stanza of 
four lines, the first rhyming with the fourth, the second with the third. ^ 
No number contains less than three stanzas, while one (Ixxxiv.) has as 
many as thirty. " The whole spirit of the poem is the spirit of the sonnet 
as understood by Dante, Petrarch, and Shakespeare." 

Prologue. The eleven stanzas comprising the prologue to the poem 
were probably the last to be written. Internal evidence would indicate 
that the work was composed at different times during the years which 
intervened between Hallam's death and the date (1849) here given. 

I. Introductory. This division is introductory to the theme which forms 
the burden of the entire poem, and was probably one of the first 
parts written. It may, therefore, have been composed some sixteen 
years earlier than the prologue. 
Stanza, i. See Longfellow, The Ladder of St. Atcgnstine : — 

" Saint Augustine ! well hast thou said, 
That of our vices we can frame 
A ladder, if we will but tread 

Beneath our feet each deed of shame," 

— who sings, etc. The reference is not to Longfellow, however, 
but more probably to Goethe. If men may thus rise on stepping- 

1 Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648) is sometimes accredited as the inventor of 
this metre. It is true that he was the first to make such verses truly melodious, but the 
stanza of this form had been used by earlier writers. It was very effectively employed 
by George Sandys in his Paraphrase of the Psalms of David (1636). 



IN MEMORIAM. 263 

stones of their dead selves to higher things, cannot they also turn 
their losses into gains, and make their tears blossom and bear fruit? 
2. far-off interest of tears. Compare with Shakespeare, Sonnet -^i : — 

" Many a holy and obsequious tear 
Hath dear religious love stol'n from mine eye 
As interest of the dead." 

4. Compare with xxvii. 4. 

II. Address to the Yew-Tree. 

In England the yew-tree is extensively planted in graveyards, probal)ly 
because of its tenacious growth and long life. With the ancient 
Druids it was an emblem of immortality. 

" The eternal gloom of the yew-tree is felt to be congenial." — Robertson. 

1. See Bryant, Thanatopsis : — 

" The oak 
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould." 

See also Gray's Elegy, stanza 4; also xxxix., below. 

2. 3. Compare with Milton, Paradise Lost, iii. ; — 

" Thus with the year 
Seasons return ; but not to me returns 
Day or the sweet approach of even or mom, 
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, 
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine." 

III. The voice of sorrow. 

I. Compare with lix. See T.ocksley Hall, 76: "A sorrow's crown of 
sorrow is remembering happier things." 

IV. The poet's musings with his heart. 

V. Why give place to grief? 

I. words . . . half conceal the Soul within. See Goldsmith, The 
Bee, No. iii. : "The true use of speech is not so much to express our 
wants as to conceal them." Talleyrand is credited with the common 
phrase : " Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts." 

3. weeds. Mourning garments. From A.-S. ivird, clothing. A 
common expression still current is "widow's weeds." — in outline, 
etc. The poet's grief shall be the subject of words — of this poem. 
But it is too great for a full expression; he can give it in outline 
only. 



264 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

VI. The shock to parents and friends. 

I. The fact of the commonness of bereavement is no consolation; it 
rather adds to grief: — 

" There is no flock, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb is there ; 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair." — Lo7igfelhnv, Resignation, 

7. Young Hallam was betrothed to Tennyson's sister, and she is the 
"poor child" whose sorrow is described in this and the following 
stanzas. From Ixxxv. 5, we learn that he died suddenly in Vienna. 

VII. At the house of sorrow. 

3. What more suggestive picture of desolation than the dark, deserted 
house, the drizzling rain at break of the blank day, and the **bald," 
silent street? 

VIII. Two similes and a reason. 

1-3. The first simile is easily understood : " Like as a happy lover . . . 

so find I every pleasant spot," etc. 
4-6. In the second simile is included the reason for inditing this poem, 

— the wish to plant " this poor flower of poesy ... on his tomb," etc. 

IX. Apostrophe to the ship that brings him home. 

I. Hallam having died, as already noted, in Vienna, his body was 
brought home in a ship from Italy, and buried not far from the 
junction of the Severn with the Wye (see xviii., xix.). — waft him 
o'er. Compare with I.ycidas, 64. — holy urn. So Milton says 
" destin'd urn " and " laureate hearse " (see note 56, page 93). 

3. Phosphor. The light-bringer or morning star. Gr. phos, light, 
and phcrcin, to bring. See cxxi. 

5. The poet's affection for his friend is here concisely expressed. 
" He seems to have looked upon their communion as a ' marriage 
of true minds,' in which he was the weaker or feminine element." 
Compare with xvii. 5. 

X. Apostrophe to the ship, continued. 

It is perhaps a foolish instinct with us, and yet it seems better that the 
dead should be buried beneath the sod than that their graves should 
be in the ocean, unknown and unmarked. 

5. fathom-deep. "Full fathom five thy father Wt?,:' — Shakespeare, 
Tempest. 

XL An interlude of calm. 

1-4. The calmness of the morning hour in autumn. 



IN MEMORIAM. 265 

5. The calmness of death on the calm sea. 

XII. The poet goes in spirit to meet the ship. 

1. See Milton's sonnet, To his Deceased Wife. 

2. mortal ark. The body. The metaphorical allusion is to the dove 
sent out by Noah to determine whether the waters of the flood had 
subsided. See C*?;/!?^/^ viii. 8-12. 

XIII. Tears for the chosen comrade, 

XIV. To think of him as still alive is not so strange. To be able to 
realize that he is dead is even stranger. 

" A simple child, 
That lightly draws its breath, 
And feels its life in every limb, 
What should it know of death ? " 

Wordsivorth, We are Seven, 

XV. An autumn storm at evening. 

Contrast the picture here drawn with that of the calm morning in xi., — 
wild unrest with calm despair. Can both exist in the same mind? 
See xvi. i. 

XVI. The poet is surprised at such contrariety of feeling. 

XVII. Another benison upon the ship. 
I. The vessel arrives. 

5. Till all my widow'd race be run. See note on ix. 5. 

XVIII. The English burial near the banks of the Severn. 

I. from ashes . . . the violet. So from the blood of Adonis springs 
the rose. See note 14, page 32. See Shakespeare, iT^zw/t-/, "And 
from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring ! " 

XIX. Arthur's grave by the river. 

1. by the pleasant shore. One would infer that the grave was near 
the river bank where the Severn joins the Wye. Hallam was buried 
inside Clevedon Church. 

2. The tide at Chepstow near the junction of the Wye and Severn 
sometimes rises sixty feet; then it is that it "makes a silence in the 
hills." 

4. The poet's grief is somewhat like the tide. 

XX. Ebb and flow. 

XXI. The poet's reason for singing. 
2-5. The complaints of the critics. 



266 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

6. I do but sing, etc. Compare with Pope, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot : — 
" I lisped in numbers for the numbers came." 

5. latest moon. The planet Neptune, discovered in 1846, probably 
just before the writing of these stanzas. 

XXII. Four years of companionship. 

1. Compare with Lycidas, 23-31 : — 

" For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill," etc. 

2. 3. From April on to April went, etc. 

" Three winters cold 
Have from the forest shook three summers' pride; 
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd, 
In process of the seasons have I seen; 
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, 
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet art green." 

Shakespeare, Sonnet 104. 

3. Shadow. The shadow of death. See Job xxiv. 17: "For the 
morning is to them even as the shadow of death; if one know them, 
they are in the terrors of the shadow of death." 

XXIII. Recollections of that companionship. 
3. Pan. See note 59, page 71. 

6. flute of Arcady. See note 7, page 67. 

XXIV. Imagination may paint the past in too bright colors. 
I. fount of Day, etc. The very sun has its spots. 

XXV. But Love's burden is light. 

XXVI. Forgetfulness of the past is less to be desired than death. 

I. Still onward, etc. Compare with Gray's ^Z.?^, 3. The preceding 

verses were written in the autumn, very soon after Arthur's death. 

Some weeks have now passed, the Christmas time is approaching, 

and the poet again takes up his pen. 
3-4. I would rather find " that Shadow waiting with the keys," than 

know that I would live indifferent to Love. 

XXVII. The blessedness of having loved. 

XXVIII. The Christmas bells. 

XXIX. Christmas eve. 

3. We will keep it for old custom's sake — because we were wont to 
do so, because we used to do so. Compare with Ixxviii., below. 



IN MEMORIAM. 267 

XXX. Christmas day. 

How we kept the Christmas eve. Conflicting thoughts. Compare it 
with the second Christmas (see Ixxviii.), and note the change which 
time brings. 

XXXI. The present state of the dead. 

In this and the next five flights we have a series of meditations on the 
condition of the departed, suggested by the story of the resurrection 
of Lazarus (see JoJui xi., xii.). 

XXXII. The devotion of Mary. 
I . See Luke x. 42. 

3. See John xii. 3. 

/ XXXIII. Simple faith better than formal devotion. 
/ XXXIV. Immortality our only hope. 

XXXV. The moral chaos that would ensue if this were not so. 

5-6. If Death were the end, then Love itself would be "mere fellow- 
ship," etc. 

XXXVI. The incarnation of Christ. 

3. the Word. " In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word 
was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth," — 
yohn i. 

4. and to cease. Compare with Keats's Ode to a iVighfijigale, 56 : — 

" To cease upon the midnight with no pain." 

XXXVII. Superiority of revelation over uninspired poetry. 

1. Urania. See note 2 on Adonnis, page 136. 

2. Parnassus. The dwelling place or favorite haunt of Apollo and 
the Muses. 

3. Melpomene. The singing goddess. The Muse who presided over 
tragedy. 

XXXVIII. Song cheers the weary way. 

The spring approaches, we are "under altered skies," the "blowing 
season " of March is here, the " herald melodies " of singing birds 
are heard. 

2. herald melodies. Compare with Shakespeare, Sonnet i : — 

" The only herald to the gaudy spring." 

XXXIX. A second address to the yew-tree. See ii., and the note on the 
same. 



268 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

XL. Death's parting is final. 

6-8. The bride returns to her friends; but the Spirits breathed away 
come not again. 

XLI. The poet fears that he will always be one hfe behind his friend. If 
this be the case, they can never be comrades again. 

XLII. And yet may they not meet as teacher and pupil? 

XLIII. Death may be a trance. 

XLIV. Do the dead forget their former life? 

1. If our souls existed before we were born, we have forgotten that 
existence. And may not the spirit in the next life also forget? — 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath elsewhere its setting. 
And cometh itoxsx afar." — Wordsworth. 

2. And yet we cannot say that "some httle flash, some mystic hint" 
of the former life does not sometimes come to us : — 

" Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness. 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God who is our home." — Wordsworth. 

3. And so may not some such mystic hint awaken the memory of the 
dead — if indeed Death so taste of forgetfulness. — Lethean. Per- 
taining to Lethe, the river of forgetfulness : — 

" A slow and silent stream, 
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 
Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks 
Forthwith his former state and being forgets — 
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain." 

Afilton, Paradise Lost, ii. 583. 

XLV. Perhaps the consciousness of personal existence first comes to us in 
this present life and is never lost. 

XLVL The memory of our five years' friendship will surely remain. 

XLVIL The doctrine of Pantheism is both vague and distasteful. See 
note on Adonais, xxxviii., page 147. 

XLVIIL The mission of Sorrow. 

2. Sorrow ministers to love, and cares not to "part and prove" the 
great problems of existence : — 



IN MEMORIAM. 269 

" Lord of my love, to whom in vassalage 
Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 
To thee I send this withered embassage. 
To witness duty, and to show my wit." 

Shakespeare, Sonnet 26. 
See iii. 

4. The poet dares not " trust a larger lay," but sings only in " short 
swallow- flights of song," i.e. in these one hundred and thirty odd 
divisions of In Memoriani. 

XLIX. The song may be light but the sorrow is deep. See cvi. 4, 5. 

L. An invocation. 

1. Thou wilt be my light. 

2. Thou wilt be my strength. 

3. Thou wilt aid my faith. 

4. Thou wilt be a strong presence to support me. 

LI. The superior wisdom of the dead. 

2. Compare with Shakespeare, Sonnet 61 : — 

" Is it thy spirit that thou send'st from thee 
So far from home into my deeds to pry. 
To find out shames and idle hours in me? " 

3-4. I fear not the searching eyes of the Spirits to whom even shame 
may be laid bare. For their larger wisdom will enable them to 
understand my weakness. 

LIL The poet would not blame his own weakness overmuch. 

Lin. Evil in retrospect. 

Is there anywhere proof that evil is in any sense desirable or necessary? 

4. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." — i. Thessalo- 
7iiatis V. 21. 

LIV. All things work together for good. 

5. See cxxiv. 5. 

/LV. Is the universal desire of immortality a proof that existence is 

eternal? 
\J 4, 5. We know nothing. We have only Faith, and upon it we must 
rest everything. 

LVI. The confusion of an appeal to Nature. 

3-5. Shall man become dust to be blown about by the winds or locked 
up in the tomb? Is this the end? See Hamlet, v. i. 



270 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

w 7. Where shall we find an answer to these wearying doubts? " Behind 
the veil, behind the veil." Compare with cxviii. 

LVII. The funeral bell. 

3. See Shakespeare, Sonnet 71 : — 

" No longer mourn for me when I am dead, 
Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell 
Give warning to the world that I am fled." 

It would seem that Tennyson's first intention was that the poem 
should end here. 

LVIII. Why shed the fruitless tear? 

LIX. Apostrophe to Sorrow. Sorrow in a personified form has taken the 
place of the dead. Compare with Shakespeare, King John : — 

" Grief fills the room up of my absent child, 
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me ; 
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words. 
Remembers me of all his gracious parts. 
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form: 
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief." 

Compare with the poet's former address to Sorrow, in iii., above. 

LX. Lowly love entertained for one in higher station. 

LXI. The sincerity of my love for him. 

3. the soul of Shakespeare. " The transcendent love for a beautiful 
soul, * passing the love of woman,' of which the soul of Shakespeare 
was capable, is here hinted at, and the poet declares that even this 
love cannot surpass his for his friend. The allusion appears to indi- 
cate a deep and probably recent study of the Sonnets of Shakespeare." 
— Tennysoniana. 

LXII. "Though an unworthy love, once past, perishes, . . . 

LXIII. "Yet the higher Being may in some sort feel for the affection 
borne to it by the inferior." — Robertson. 

LXIV. Does the great man remember the humble companion of his 
boyhood? 

LXV. Our love must still be in some degree mutual. 

LXVL My loss is like the blind man's loss of sight. But even the blind 
man's " inner day can never die." 



IN MEM OR I AM. 271 

LXVII. In fancy, at night, I see the tal^let over Arthur's grave in the 
dark church. 

LXVIII. In my dreams he is not dead. See note at bottom of page 148. 
I . Sleep, Death's twin-brother. See note on Adonais, vii. 7, page 1 39. 

LXIX. A dream. 

LXX. Out of the shadovviness of dreams Arthur's fair face appears and 
drives all phantoms away. 

LXXI. Recollections of one pleasant episode in our lives. 

LXXII. Anniversary of Arthur's death. A stormy, dreary day in autumn 
again. Compare with xcix. 

LXXIII. Fame. He lived not to achieve it — and why should he? 
Compare with Lycidas, 78. 

LXXIV. A simile. His family likeness to the good and great. 

LXXV. His deeds while here were potential, but certainly, somewhere, 
he is now making his power active. Compare this and the next two 
flights with Shakespeare, Sonnet 17: — 

" Who will believe my verse in time to come, 
If it were filled with your most high deserts? 
Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb 
Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. 
If I could write the beauty of your eyes 
And in fresh numbers number all your graces, 
The eye to come would say, ' This poet lies ; 
Such heav'nly touches ne'er touch'd earthly faces.' 
So should my papers, yellovv'd with their age. 
Be scorn'd like old men of less truth than tongue, 
And your true rights be term'd a poet's rage 
And stretched metre of an antique song." 

LXXVI. Fame at its best is transient. 

LXXVII. These verses may be but short-lived, yet what of that? I sing 
for love, and not for fame. 

LXXVIII. The second Christmas. Compare with xxviii., xxix., above. 
4. Grief is not so poignant as it was a year ago. 

LXXIX. The closeness of our friendship. 

Here begins a series of verses in which the poet musingly reviews the 
loving relationship which existed between him and Arthur. 

LXXX. Suppose he had lived and I had died. 



272 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. ; 

LXXXI. My love for him has been made mature through his death. j 

LXXXII. I murmur only because our intercourse has been terminated. 

All else is well. ; 

LXXXIII. The tardy spring of the new year. It whispers hope. \ 

3. See Lycidas, 142-151; also note 16, page 34. \ 

LXXXIV. Visions of what might have been. ; 

3. See vi. 7, and the note to the same. I 

LXXXV. After all, another friendship is not impossible. : 

25. clasping brother-hands. This poem is probably addressed to 
Tennyson's brother-in-law (husband of Arthur's betrothed), and if 
so, must have been written at least seven years after Hallam's death, i 

LXXXVI. The coming of Spring brings hallowed influences, and whisper? j 
" Peace ! " 

LXXXVII. Reminiscences of college life. 

2. high-built organs. Compare with Milton, ///'^/w^rc'.yc, 161 : — 

" There let the pealing organ blow i 

To the full-voiced quire below," etc. i 

i 

LXXXVIII. The contrast of fierce and secret joy in the song of the | 

nightingale. See Keats's Ode to a Nightingale. \ 

3. Sqq Locksley Hall : — 

" Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the chords with might." 1 

LXXXIX. Memoirs of country delights. 
6. Tuscan poets. Dante, Petrarch. 

XC. A change of circumstances may make return of the dead to life i 
undesirable to some, but never would his return be unwelcome to me. 

XCI. Both spring and summer bring glad remembrances of him, and J 
seem to bid him come back. 

XCII. And yet even should he return in visible spirit-form, I could hardly '• 
believe it. 

XCIII. Oh, that our spirits might at least have some sort of communion. j 
2. Compare with this from ^_j'//;/6'r'.j' /zV/^/.- — ' 

" Star to star vibrates light : may soul to soul '1 

Strike through a finer element of her own j 

So from afar touch as at once? " > 

XCIV. Only the pure in heart can hold communion with the dead. 



IN MEM OKI AM. 273 

XCV. Another reminiscence called up by reading his letters one night 
while tenting in the fields. 
7. defying change. See Shakespeare, 6"^/^;^,?^ 123: — 

" No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change, 
Thy registers and thee, I both defy." 

5. from me and night. Compare with Gray's Elegy , 4. 

XCVI. Doubt and faith. 

6. Sinai's peaks of old. See Exodus xxxii. 1-4. 

XCVII. The love of faith. 

XCVIII. Vienna, the city of his death. 

XCIX. The second anniversary of his death. See Ixxii., above. 

C. Every object I see recalls memories of him. " Once more he seems 
to die." 

CI. On leaving the home of childhood. Tennyson left his ancestral home 
about the year 1835, ^'^'^ this division of the poem was probably 
written at that time. 
3. lesser wain. The constellation U^'sa Major, or the Great Bear, 
is frequently called " Charles's wain " (probably from ceorles wain, 
the countryman's wagon). Tennyson doubtless refers here to the 
constellation Ursa Minor, or the Little Bear. 

CII. The remembrances which make the old home so dear are of two 
kinds. 
2. Two spirits, etc. See Shakespeare, Sonnet 144: — 

" Two loves I have of comfort and despair, 
Which hke two spirits do suggest me still." 

cm. The last night in my childhood's home, and what I dreamed. 

" The vision presents the thought that, his memory going with us, the 
spirit of all that is wise and good and graceful sails with us in the 
life-voyage." — Robertson. 

CIV. The approach of Christmas. Strange Christmas bells. 

CV. The third Christmas eve. In a new house, and among strange 
associations. Compare with xxviii. and Ixxviii. 

CVI. The bells of the New Year. 

CVII. Celebration of Arthur's birthday. 

However bitter the winter weather, let us keep the day with festal cheer. 



274 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. \ 

\ 

CVIII. The wisdom which sorrow brings. ] 

CIX. Arthur's distinctive characteristics. I 

ex. His influence over his associates. ' 

CXI. A true gentleman he was in heart and hfe : — " 

" The rank is but the guinea's stamp, i 

A man's a man for a' that." — Bunts. i 

CXII. The growth of his intellectual power. ; 

CXIII. What he would have been had he lived. 

CXIV. Wisdom is heavenly, Knowledge is of earth. His was a charac- 
ter in which to knowledge was added reverence and charity, — and 
these three thus blended are Wisdom. 

CXV. The coming of spring. Compare with xxxviii. 

CXVI. Hopes aroused by Nature's re-awakening. 

CXVII. The sorrow of separation will only enhance the delight of | 

meting. j 

3. All the courses of the suns. Compare with Shakespeare, Sonnet j 

59 : " Inve hundred courses of the sun." | 

CXVHI. The evolution of man from the lower forms of nature is but an | 

indication that his upward progress will continue. j 

I. dying Nature's earth and lime. Compare with — i 

" Before the little ducts began i 

To feed the bones with lime." — Two Voices, ^26. ' 

CXIX. Another visit to the house which was Arthur's home. Compare j 

with vii. ' ; 

^CXX. Man is not " a greater ape." He is born for higher things. \ 

I. Like Paul with beasts. See i Corinthians xv. 32. This poem was \ 

written before the enunciation of the doctrine of evolution by Dar- j 

win, probably soon after the publication of The Vestiges of the j 

Natural History of Creation (1844), which had produced much j 

discussion on this and kindred themes. j 

CXXI. The evening and the morning star. As Hesper, the evening star, 

changes in time to Phosphor, the morning star, so my grief has ; 

changed from despair to hope. See ix., above. | 

CXXII. Did Arthur know of my despair and wretchedness? Then let | 

him be with me now in my feeling of blessedness,. \ 



J 



IN MEMORIAL. 275 

1. Compare with Shakespeare, Sonnet 64: — 

" When I have seen the hungry ocean gain 
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore, 
And the firm soil win of the watery main," etc. 

CXXIir. The great changes which have taken place on earth, yet no 
change can make me think our separation final. 

^XXIV. An answer to the sceptic's doubts. Do we ask, Where is God? 
We feel Him, know Him, in our inmost hearts. 
5. See liv. 5. 

CXXV. In all these sorrowing verses, Hope and Love have been present; 
for it was he that " breathed the spirit of the song." 

2. Compare with Shakespeare, Sonnet 72 : — 

" Unless you would devise some virtuous lie. 
To do more for me than mine own desert, 
And hang more praise upon deceased I 
Than niggard truth would willingly impart — 
Oh, lest your true love may seem false in this. 
That you for love speak well of me untrue." 

CXXVI. The majesty of Love. 

CXXVH. All is well. All is moving on towards God. 

2. fool-fury of the Seine. The French revolution. We infer from 
the expression " thrice again " that he has in mind three revolutions. 
If so, this poem must have been written about the time of the popu- 
lar uprising in 1848 and the dethronement of Louis Philippe. 

CXXVIII. Love conquers doubt. 

CXXIX. The ennobling power of the friendship which I have for him. 
2. Sweet human hand, etc. Compare with, — 



J 



In the blazon of sweet beauty's best, 
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow." 

Shakespeare, Sonnet 106. 



CXXX. He is now a universal presence. 

2. I do not therefore love thee less. Compare with, — 

" I love not less though less the show appear." 

Shakespeare, Sonnet 102. 

CXXXI. A prayer for spiritual strength. 



276 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

It is wonderful how generally the formalists have missed their way to 
the interpretation of this poem. It is sometimes declared with oracular 
decisiveness, that, if this be poetry, all they have been accustomed to call 
poetry must change its name. As if it were not a law that every original 
poet must be in a sense new; as if yEschylus were not a poet because he 
did not write an epic like Homer : or as if the Romantic poets were not 
poets because they departed from every rule of classical poetry. And as 
if, indeed, this very objection had not been brought against the Romantic 
school, and Shakespeare himself pronounced by French critics a " buf- 
foon " : till Schlegel showed that all life makes to itself its own form, and 
that Shakespeare's form had its living laws. So spoke the " Edinburgh 
Review" of Byron; but it could not arrest his career. So spoke Byron 
himself of Wordsworth ; but he would be a bold man, or a very flippant 
one, who would dare to say now that Wordsworth is not a great poet. 
And the day will come when the slow, sure judgment of Time shall give 
to Tennyson his undisputed place among the English poets as a true one, 
of rare merit and originality. — F. W. Robertson. 

I conceive that this monumental and superlative poem has done more 
than any other literary performance of the nineteenth century to express 
and to consolidate all that is best in the life of England, its domestic 
affection, its patriotic feeling, its healthful morality, its rational and earnest 
religion. Happy is the nation whose accepted and greatest poet thus 
voices its deepest instincts. Let who will adjure Englishmen to galvanize 
the corpse of Paganism, I shall take my place in the throng of simple folk 
who listen, well pleased, to the home-bred, heart-felt, honest strains. of In 
Menioriam. — Peter Bayne. 

It is the cry of the bereaved Psyche into the dark infinite after the 
vanished love. His friend is nowhere in his sight, and God is silent. 
Death, God's final compulsion to prayer, in its dread, its gloom, its utter 
stillness, its apparent nothingness, urges the cry. Moanings over the dead 
are mingled with the profoundest questionings of philosophy, the signs of 
nature, and the story of Jesus, while now and then the star of the morn- 
ing, bright Phosphor, flashes a few rays through the shifting, cloudy dark- 
ness. And if the sun has not arisen on the close of the book, yet the 
aurora of the coming dawn gives light enough to make the onward journey 
possible and hopeful. — George MacDonald, 



ELEGIACAL POEMS 

By William Shakespeare, Ben Jonsort, John Webster, Henry Vaughan, 
John Milton, Thomas Chatter ton, Robert Burns, Percy Bysshe Shelley, 
William Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, William Cullen Bryant, and 
others 



If I were to give a sensible image of Elegy, I should not paint her 
as many have done, in long robes of sorroiv, with dishevelled hair and 
a veiled brozv^ weeping over a coffin. I zvonld rather represent her as 
a nymph, seated placidly, zvith her head tipon her hand, full of feeling 
and contemplation. On her neglected locks shotdd hang a torn garland, 
and in her lap should lie a wreath of faded flowers. A tomb should 
appear in the distance, half- concealed -by a dark grove of cypresses. Be- 
hind should rise a hill full of budding roses, and illumined with the 
rays of the rising sun. — Jacobi. 



lElcgtaral ^ocms. 



3>@<C 



EPITAPH. 



Here lies a piece of Christ ; a star in dust ; 
A vein of gold ; a china dish that must 
Be used in heaven, when God shall feast the just. 

Robert Wilde (17th Century). 

II. 

EPITAPH. 

In this marble casket lies 
A matchless jewel of rich price ; 
Whom Nature in the world's disdain 
But showed, and put it up again. 

Anon. 

III. 

EPITAPH ON THE COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE. 

Underneath this sable hearse 
Lies the subject of all verse, 
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother ; 
Death ! ere thou hast slain another, 
■ Learn'd and fair, and good as she, 
Time shall throw a dart at thee. 

Ben Jonson (i 574-1 637). 
279 



280 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

IV. 

EPITAPH ON ELIZABETH L. H. 

WouLDST thou hear what man can say 
In a little ? Reader, stay. 

Underneath this stone doth lie 

As much beauty as could die : 

Which in life did harbour give 

To more virtue than doth live. 

If at all she had a fault, 

Leave it buried in this vault. 

One name was Elizabeth, 

The other, let it sleep with death : 

Fitter, when it died, to tell. 

Than that it lived at all. Farewell ! 

Ben Jonson (1574-1637). 



V. 



A SEA DIRGE. 

Full fathom five thy father lies : 

Of his bones are coral made ; 
Those are pearls that were his eyes : 

Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange ; 
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell : 
Hark! now I hear them, — 

Ding, dong, Bell. 

William Shakespeare (1564-1616). 



ELEGIAC A L POEMS. 281 

VI. 

A LAND DIRGE. 

Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren, 

Since o'er shady groves they hover 

And with leaves and flowers do cover 

The friendless bodies of unburied men. 

Call unto his funeral dole 

The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole 

To rear him hillocks that shall keep him warm 

And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no harm ; 

But keep the wolf far thence, that's foe to men, 

For with his nails he'll dig them up again. 

John Webster (15 -1654). 

VII. 

soldiers' dirge. 

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest 
By all their country's wishes blest ! 
When spring, with dewy fingers cold. 
Returns to deck their hallow'd mould. 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod 
Than fancy's feet have ever trod. 

By fairy hands their knell is rung. 
By forms unseen their dirge is sung: 
There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray. 



To bless the turf that wraps their clay ; \ 

And Freedom shall awhile repair, < 

To dwell a weeping hermit there. ; 
William Collins (i 721-1756). 

] 
" 1 



282 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



VIII. 



ROSE AYLMER. 

Ah ! what avails the sceptred race, 
Ah ! what the form divine ! 
What every virtue, every grace ! 
Rose Aylmer, all were thine. 

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes 
May weep, but never see, 
A night of memories and of sighs 
I consecrate to thee. 

Walter Savage Landor (i 775-1 864). 



IX. 

A PAGAN EPITAPH. 

In this marble buried lies 
Beauty may enrich the skies. 
And add light to Phoebus' eyes ; 

Sweeter than Aurora's air, 
When she paints the lilies fair, 
And gilds cowslips with her hair ; 

Chaster than the virgin spring. 
Ere her blossoms she doth bring, 
Or cause Philomel to sing*. 

If such goodness live 'mongst men, 
Tell me it : I [shall] know then 
She is come from Heaven again. 

Anon. 



ELEGIAC A L POEMS. 283 



BEREAVEMENT. 

She dwelt among the untrodden ways 

Beside the springs of Dove ; 
A maid whom there were none to praise. 

And very few to love. 

A violet by a mossy stone 

Half-hidden from the eye ! 
— Fair as a star, when only one 

Is shining in the sky. 

She lived unknown, and few could know 
When Lucy ceased to be ; 



But she is in her grave, and O 



The difference to me ! 

William Wordsworth (1770- 1850). 

XI. 

EPITAPH ON MRS. MARGARET PASTON. 

So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet, 
So ripe a judgment and so rare a wit, 
Require at least an age in one to meet. 
In her they met ; but long they could not stay, 
'Twas gold too fine to mix without allay. 
Heaven's image was in her so well express'd. 
Her very sight upbraided all the rest ; 
Too justly ravish'd from an age like this. 
Now she is gone, the world is of a piece. 

John Dryden (1631-1701). 



284 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

XII. i 

EPITAPH ON THE EXCELLENT COUNTESS OF 

HUNTINGDON. \ 

The chief perfection of both sexes joined, '\ 

With neither's vice nor vanity combined ; \ 

Of this our age, the wonder, love, and care, i 

The example of the following, and despair ; ■ 
Such beauty, that from all hearts love must flow. 
Such majesty, that none durst tell her so ; 

A wisdom of so large and potent sway, \ 

Rome's Senate might have wished, her Conclave may : j 

Which did to earthly thoughts so seldom bow, \ 

Alive she scarce was less in heaven than now ; \ 

So void of the least pride, to her alone ; 

These radiant excellencies seemed unknown ; ^ 

Such once there was ; but let thy grief appear, i 

Reader, there is not : Huntingdon lies here. j 

Lord Falkland (i 576-1 633). \ 

\ 

XIII. j 

1 

ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE THOM- \ 

SON, MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND. : 

When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, ; 
Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God, 

Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load i 

Of death, called life ; which us from life doth sever. ^ 

Thy works and alms, and all thy good endeavour, 1 

Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod ; \ 

But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, ! 

Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever. - 



ELEGIAC AL POEMS. 285 

Love led them on, and Faith, who knew them best, 
Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams 
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest. 
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes 
Before the Judge ; who thenceforth bid thee rest. 
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams. 

John Milton (1608-1674). 

XIV. 

MARY. 

If I had thought thou could'st have died, 

I might not weep for thee ; 
^ut I forgot, when by thy side. 

That thou could'st mortal be. 
It never through my mind had passed 

That time would e'er be o'er. 
And I on thee should look my last. 

And thou should'st smile no more ! 

And still upon that face I look. 

And think 'twill smile again ; 
And still the thought I will not brook 

That I must look in vain. 
But when I speak thou dost not say. 

What thou ne'er left'st unsaid ; 
And now I feel, as well I may. 

Sweet Mary, thou art dead ! 

If thou would'st stay, e'en as thou art, 

All cold, and all serene — 
I still might press thy silent heart. 

And where thy smiles have been ! 
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have. 

Thou seemest still mine own ; 



286 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

But there — I lay thee in thy grave, 
And I am now alone ! 

I do not thmk, where'er thou art, 

Thou hast forgotten me ; 
And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart. 

In thinking still of thee : 
Yet there was round thee such a dawn 

Of light ne'er seen before. 
As fancy never could have drawn, 

And never can restore ! 

Charles Wolfe (i 791-1823). 

XV. 

HESTER. 

When maidens such as Hester die. 
Their place ye may not well supply, 
Though ye among a thousand try. 
With vain endeavour. 

A month or more hath she been dead, 
Yet cannot I by force be led 
To think upon the wormy bed, 
And her together. 

A springy motion in her gait, 
A rising step, did indicate 
Of pride and joy no common rate 
That flushed her spirit. 

I know not by what name beside 
I shall it call : — if 'twas not pride, 
It was a joy to that allied, 
She did inherit. 



ELEGIACAL POEMS. 287 

Her parents held the Quaker rule, 
Which cloth the human feelmg cool, 
But she was trained in Nature's school, 
Nature had blest her. 

A waking eye, a prying mind, 
A heart that stirs, is hard to bind, 
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blindp 
Ye could not Hester. 

My sprightly neighbour, gone before 
To that unknown and silent shore. 
Shall we not meet, as heretofore. 
Some summer morning. 

When from thy cheerful eyes a ray 
Hath struck a bliss upon the day, 
A bliss that would not go away, 
A sweet forewarning } 

Charles Lamb (1775-1834). 

XVI. 
THE shepherd's ELEGY. 

Glide soft, ye silver floods, 
And every spring. 
Within the shady woods 
Let no bird sing ! 
Nor from the grove a turtle dove 
Be seen to couple with her love. 
But silence on each dale and mountain dwell, 
Whilst Willy bids his friend and joy farewell. 

But of great Thetis' train 
Ye mermaids fair 



288 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

That on the shores do plain 
Your sea-green hair, 
As ye in trammels knit your locks 
Weep ye ; and so enforce the rocks 
In heavy murmurs through the broad shores tell, 
How Willy bade his friend and joy farewell. 

Cease, cease, ye murmuring winds, 
To move a wave ; 
But if with troubled minds 
You seek his grave, 
Know 'tis as various as yourselves 
Now in the deep, then on the shelves, 
His coffin tossed by fish and surges fell. 
Whilst Willy weeps, and bids all joy farewell. 

Had he, Arion like 
Been judged to drown, 
He on his lute could strike 
So rare a sown, 
A thousand dolphins would have come 
And jointly strive to bring him home. 
But he on shipboard died, by sickness fell. 
Since when his Willy paid all joy farewell. 

Great Neptune, hear a swain ! 
His coffin take, 
And with a golden chain 
(For pity) make 
It fast unto a rock near land ! 
Where ev'ry calmy morn I'll stand. 
And ere one sheep out of my fold I tell, 
Sad Willy's pipe shall bid his friend farewell. 

William Browne (1590-1645). 



ELEGIACAL POEMS, 289 

XVII. 

ELEGY ON CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON. 

O Death ! thou tyrant fell and bloody ! 

The meikle devil wi' a woodie 

Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie, 

O'er hurcheon hides, 
And like stockfish came o'er his studdie 

Wi' thy auld sides ! 

He's gane! he's gane! he's frae us torn, 

The ae best fellow e'er was born ! 

Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn 

By wood and wild, 
Where, haply. Pity strays forlorn, 

Frae man exiled. 

Ye hills, near neibours o' the starns, 
That proudly cock your cresting cairns ! 
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns. 

Where Echo slumbers ! 
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns, 

My wailing numbers ! 

Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens ! 
Ye hazelly shaws and briery dens ! 
Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens, 

Wi' toddlin' din. 
Or foaming Strang, wi' hasty stens, 

Frae lin to lin. 

Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea ; 
•Ye stately foxgloves, fair to see; 



290 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie • 
In scented bowers ; 

Ye roses on your thorny tree, 

The first o' flowers. 

At dawn, when every grassy blade 
Droops with a diamond at its head, 
At even, when beans their fragrance shed, 

r the rusthng gale. 
Ye maukins, whiddin' through the glade, 

Come join my wail ! 

Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood ; 
Ye grouse, that crap the heather bud ; 
Ye curlews, calling through a clud ; 

Ye whistling plover ; 
And mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood — 

He's gane for ever ! 

Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals ; 
Ye fisher herons, watching eels ; 
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels 

Circling the lake ; 
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, 

Rair for his sake ! 

Mourn, clam'ring craiks at close o' day, 
'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay; 
And when ye wing your annual way 

Frae our cauld shore. 
Tell thae far warlds, wha lies in clay, 

Wham we deplore. 



ELEGIACAL POEMS. 291 

Ye houiets, frae your ivy bower, 
In some auld tree, or eldritch tower. 
What time the moon, wi' silent glower. 

Sets up her horn, 
Wail through the dreary midnight hour 

Till waukrife morn ! 

O rivers, forests, hills, and plains ! 
Oft have ye heard my canty strains : 
But now, what else for me remains 

But tales of woe ? 
And frae my e'en the drapping rains 

Maun ever flow. 

Mourn, Spring, thou darling of the year ! 
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear: 
Thou Simmer, while each corny spear 

Shoots up its head. 
Thy gay, green, flowery tresses shear 

For him that's dead ! 

Thou, Autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, 
In grief thy swallow mantle tear ! 
Thou, Winter, hurling through the air 

The roaring blast. 
Wide o'er the naked world declare 

The worth we've lost ! 

Mourn him, thou Sun, great source of light ! 
Mourn, Empress of the silent night ! 
And you, ye twinkling Starnies bright. 

My Matthew mourn ! 
For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight. 

Ne'er to return. 



292 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

O Henderson ! the man ! — the brother ! 
And art thou gone, and gone for ever ? 
And hast thou crossed that unknown river, 

Life's dreary bound ? 
Like thee, where shall I find another. 

The world around ? 

Go to your sculptured tombs, ye great. 
In a' the tinsel trash o' state ! 
But by thy honest turf I'll wait. 

Thou man of worth ! 
And weep the ae best fellow's fate 

E'er lay in earth. 

Robert Burns (i 759-1 796). 

XVIII. 

THE minstrel's ROUNDELAY. 

Oh sing unto my roundelay, 

Oh drop the briny tear with me, 

Dance no more on holiday ; 

Like a running river be. 
My love is dead. 
Gone to his death-bed. 
All under the willow-tree. 

Black his hair as the winter night. 
White his skin as the summer snow, 
Red his face as the morning light. 
Cold he lies in the grave below. 
My love is dead. 
Gone to his death-bed. 
All under the willow-tree. 



ELEGIACAL POEMS. 293 

Sweet his tongue as the throstle's note, 
Quick in dance as thought can be, 
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout ; 
Oh ! he lies by the willow-tree. 

My love is dead. 

Gone to his death-bed. 

All under the willow-tree. 

Hark! the raven flaps his wing, 
In the briar'd dell below ; 
Hark ! the death-owl loud doth sing 
To the nightmares, as they go. 

My love is dead, 

Gone to his death-bed, 

All under the willow-tree. 

See ! the white moon shines on high ; 
Whiter is my true-love's shroud, 
Whiter than the morning sky. 
Whiter than the evening cloud. 

My love is dead, 

Gone to his death-bed, 

All under the willow-tree. 

Here upon my true-love's grave. 
Shall the barren flowers be laid ; 
Not one holy saint to save 
All the coldness of a maid. 

My love is dead. 

Gone to his death-bed, 

All under the willow-tree. 

With my hands I'll fix the briars. 
Round his holy corse to gre, 



294 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Elfin fairies, light your fires, 

Here my body still shall be. 
My love is dead, 
Gone to his death-bed, 
All under the willow-tree. 

Come with acorn-cup and thorn, 
Drain my heart's blood all away ; 
Life and all its good I scorn, 
Dance by night or feast by day. 
My love is dead, 
Gone to his death-bed, 
All under the willow-tree. 

Water-witches, crowned with reytes, 
Bear me to your lethal tide. 
I die ! I come ! my true love waits, — 
Thus the damsel spake, and died. 

Thomas Chatterton (i 752-1 770). 

XIX. 

THANATOPSIS. 

To him who in the love of Nature holds 

Communion with her visible forms, she speaks 

A various language : for his gayer hours 

She has a voice of gladness, and a smile 

And eloquence of beauty ; and she glides 

Into his darker musings with a mild 

And healing sympathy, that steals away 

Their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts 

Of the last bitter hour come like a blight 

Over thy spirit, and sad images 

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, 



ELEGIACAL POEMS. 295 

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house, 

Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart, 

Go forth under the open sky and list 

To Nature's teachings, while from all around — 

Earth and her waters, and the depths of air — 

Comes a still voice : Yet a few days, and thee 

The all-beholding sun shall see no more 

In all his course ; nor yet in the cold ground, 

Where thy pale form was laid with many tears, 

Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist 

Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim 

Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again ; 

And, lost each human trace, surrendering up 

Thine individual being, shalt thou go 

To mix forever with the elements — 

To be a brother to the insensible rock, 

And to the sluggish clod which the rude swain 

Turns with his share and treads upon. The oak 

Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mold. 

Yet not to thine eternal resting-place 

Shalt thou retire alone, — nor couldst thou wish 

Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down 

With patriarchs of the infant world — with kings, 

The powerful of the earth — the wise, the good. 

Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past. 

All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills. 

Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun ; the vales 

Stretching in pensive quietness between ; 

The venerable woods; rivers that move 

In majesty, and the complaining brooks 

That make the meadows green ; and, poured round all. 

Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste — 



296 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



Are but the solemn decorations all ) 

Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, I 

The planets, all the infinite host of heaven, \ 

Are shining on the sad abodes of death, j 

Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread \ 

The globe are but a handful to the tribes ' 

That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings ' 
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce. 

Or lose thyself in the continuous woods j 

Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound i 

Save his own dashings — yet the dead are there ! ' 

And millions in those solitudes, since first : 
The flight of years began, have laid them down 

In their last sleep — the dead reign there alone. , 

So shalt thou rest ; and what if thou withdraw \ 

In silence from the living, and no friend \ 

Take note of thy departure } All that breathe \ 

Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh \ 

When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care \ 

Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase ' 

His favorite phantom ; yet all these shall leave | 

Their mirth and their employments, and shall come - 

And make their bed with thee. As the long train : 

Of ages glide away, the sons of men — I 

The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes ] 

In the full strength of years, matron, and maid, ! 
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man — 

Shall one by one be gathered to thy side j 

By those who in their turn shall follow them. j 

So live, that when thy summons comes to join .' 

The innumerable caravan that moves i 



ELEGIACAL POEMS. 297 

To that mysterious realm where each shall take 
His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night, 
Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave 
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. 

William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878). 



XX. 

FRIENDS DEPARTED. 

They are all gone into the world of light ! 

And I alone sit ling'ring here ! 
Their very memory is fair and bright, 
And my sad thoughts doth clear. 

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast 

Like stars upon some gloomy grove. 
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest 
After the Sun's remove. 

I see them walking in an air of glory, 

Whose light doth trample on my days ; 
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary, 
Mere glimmering and decays. 

O holy Hope ! and high Humility ! 

High as the Heavens above ! 
These are your walks, and you have shew'd them me 
To kindle my cold love. 



298 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 

Dear, beauteous death ; the Jewel of the Just ! 

Shining no where but in the dark ; 

What mysteries do He beyond thy dust, 

Could man outlook that mark ! 

He that hath found some fledg'd bird's nest may know 

At first sight if the bird be flown ; 
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now, 
That is to him unknown. 

And yet, as Angels in some brighter dreams 

Call to the soul when man doth sleep, 
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes. 
And into glory peep. 

If a star were confin'd into a tomb. 

Her captive flames must needs burn there ; 
But when the hand that lock'd her up gives room, 
She'll shine through all the sphere. 

O Father of eternal life, and all 

Created glories under thee ! 
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall 
Into true liberty ! 

Either disperse these mists which blot and fill 

My perspective still as they pass ; 

Or else remove me hence unto that hill 

Where I shall need no glass. 

Henry Vaughan (1621-1695). 



ELEGIAC A L POEMS. 299 

NOTES. 

III. 

The Countess of Pembroke, commemorated in these famous lines, was 
Mary Herbert, the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. It was she who wrote The 
Dolefull Lay of Clorinda (see note, page 65), and it was for her that Sid- 
ney composed the pastoral romance Arcadia. 

sable hearse. Compare with "sable shroud," Lycidas, 22. 

V. 

This is a song of Ariel, from Shakespeare's The Tempest, i. 2. 
VIII. 

Charles Lamb says of this little lyric that it possessed for him a charm 
which he could in no manner explain. " I lived on it for weeks." 

IX. 

gilds cowslips with her hair. Compare this conception of Aurora's 
hair with Shelley's reference to the hair of Morning, Adonais, xiv. 3-5. 
See also note on the same. 

X. 

This exquisite little poem was written in Germany in 1799. 

Dove. A stream which rises near Buxton in Derbyshire and finally 
flows into the Trent. It is often referred to by Walton in his Complete 
Angler, and by Charles Cotton who says : — 

" O my beloved nymph, fair Dove, 
Princess of rivers, how I love 
Upon thy flowery banks to lie." 

XII. 

These lines are to the memory of Elizabeth, wife of Henry Hastings, 
fifth earl of Huntingdon. Mindful of the untruthfulness of too many 
epitaphs. Lord Falkland signed the original copy of these " by him who 
says what he saw," — thus asserting that his praise of the Countess was not 
out of proportion to her deserts. 

XIIL 

Concerning Mrs. Catherine Thomson, we have no information, save that 
she was a friend of Milton's and died Dec. 16, 1646. 

this earthly load of death called life. Compare with Adonais., 
xxxix. 2, 



300 THE BOOK OF ELEGIES. 



XV. 



These lines were written in memory of Hester Savory, " a young 
Quaker you may have heard me speak of as being in love with for some 
years while I lived at Pentonville," says Lamb, " though I had never 
spoken to her in my life." 

XVI. 

This poem is selected from Britannia^ s Pastorals, 1616. Notice the 
resemblance in thought between several of these lines and similar expres- 
sions in the elegies by Bion and Moschus. 

dolphins. See note 14, page 46. 

xyii. 

Burns, in the original title to this poem, characterizes Captain Hender- 
son as " a gentleman who held the patent for his honours immediately 
from Almighty God." 

Compare the greater part of this elegy with the first five stanzas of 
the Lament for Bion. 

bairns — children. . maun — must. 

burnies — brooks. meikle — much. 

cairns — heaps of stones. paitrick — partridge. 

canty — merry. rair — roar. 

cushat — wood-pigeon. shaws — woo ds. 

e'en — eyes. smiddie — smithy. 

eldritch — elfish. starns — stars. 

houlets — owls. studdie — anvil. 

hurcheon — hedgehog. waukrif e — sleepless. 

ilk, ilka — each, every. whiddin' — skipping. 

lin — waterfall. wimplin' — winding. 

maukins — hares. WOOdie — rope, halter. 

XVIH. 

This song occurs in Chatterton's Tragedy of yElla (i'j6g), and is prob- 
ably oftener quoted than any other portion of that author's works. 
gre — grow. reytes — water-flags. lethal — deadly, fatal. 
Compare the second stanza with Hamlet, iv., v., 189-193. 

XIX. 

Thanatopsis was first published in the N'orth American Review in 18 1 7, 
and was written by Bryant when in his eighteenth year. The word is 
from two Greek words, Ihanatos, death, and opsis, view« 



INDEX. 



A. 

Acheron, 17, 31. 

Acis, 15. 

Actason, 146. 

Adonais, ii;^. 

Adonais, 135. 

Adonis, 16, 27. 

Adonis, Lament for, 19. 

aisle, 108. 

Albion, 72, 142. 

Alpheus, 92. 

Amaryllis, 90. 

Anapus, 15. 

Arcady, 67, 268. 

Ardeyn, 69. 

Arethusa, 17, 45, 47, 91, 92. 

ASTROPHEL, 51. 

Astrophel, 66. 

Ausonian, 47. 

B. 

bale, 69. 

Banks, Rev. J., Translation by, 21. 

battening, 88. 

Bayne, Peter, quoted, 276. 

bells, 105, 107, 141, 272. 

Bellerus, 93. 

Bereavetnefit, 283. 

Bion, 29. 

BiON, Lament for, 37. 

boots, 90. 

Browne, William, 287. 



Browning, E. B., Translation by, 24. 
Bryant, William Cullen, 294. 
Brysket, Ludovick, 65. 
Burns, Robert, 289. 
Byron, Lord, 145. 



C. 



Cain, 142, 147, 

Caius Cestus, 150. 

Camus, 91. 

canker, 89. 

Chatterton, Thomas, 149, 292, 300. 

Cinyras, 36. 

clarion, 106. 

clipped locks, 35, 140. 

Collins, William, 76, 281. 

Country Churchyard, Elegy 

WRITTEN in a, 95. 

curfew, 105. 
Cymbeline, 74. 
Cymbeline, Dirge in, 76. 
Cypris, 16. 
Cytherea, 31. 

D. 

Damoetas, 88. 

Daphnis, 14. 

Daphnis, The Sorrow of, 9. 

dear, 87. 

death, a sleep, 48. 

Death and Sleep, 273. 

dew, 140. 



301 



302 INDEX. 


Diomed, i6. 


hardie, 68. 


Dione, 36, 


Helice, 17. 


Dirges, 280, 281. 


HcHderson, Captain Matthew, Elegy 


Dirge for Imogen, 73. 


on, 189, 300. 


Dirge in Cymbeline, 76. 


Hermes, 16. 


dolphins, 46. 


Hesper, 276. 


Dorian, 44, 45, 46. 


Hester, 286. 


Dryden, John, 283. 


Hippocrene, 47. 


due, 112. 


Hippotades, 91. 




Hunt, Leigh, 147. 


E. 


Huntingdon, Countess of. Epitaph on 




the, 284. 


Echo, 40, 88, 141. 


Hyacinth, 142. 


eclipse, 91. 


Hymen, 35. 


Elegiacal Poems, 277. 




Elizabeth L. H., Epitaph on, 280. 


I. 


Epitaphs, 'zjg, 280. 




evolution, 276. 


lerne, 146. 



F. 

Falkland, Lord, 204. 

fame, 90, 273. 

Fates, 90. 

Fauns, 88., 

flowers, 32, 33, 34, 93, 143. 

foil, 91. 

fretted, 108. 

Friends Departed, 297. 

Fury, 88. 

G. 

Galatea, 47. 
Genius, 94. 
glebe, 107. 
Gray, Thomas, 104. 
Gray's Elegy, 95. 

H. 

Haemony, 67. 

hair, 141. 

halcyon, 46. 

Hales, Rev, J. W., quoted, 96, 138. 

Hallam, Arthur Henry, 264, 266. 



Imogen, Dirge for, 73. 
In Memoriam, 151, 264. 
incarnation, 143. 

J. 

Jacobi, quoted, 278. 
Jonson, Ben, 279, 280. 

Keats, John, 114, 135. 
King, Edward, 78. 



Lamb, Charles, 286, 299. 

Land Dirge, A, 281. 

Landor, Walter Savage, 282. 

Lang, Andrew, Translation by, 39. 

laurel, 72, 86. 

let, 69. 

Longfellow, Henry W., 264. 

Lucan, 149. 

Lycaeus, 17. 

Lycaon, 17. 

Lycidas, 77. 

Lycidas, 86. 



INDEX. 



30^ 



M. 



MacDonald, George, quoted, 276. 

Maenalus, 17. 

Mahaffy, J. P., quoted, 18. 

make (mate), 71. 

Margaret Pas ton, Epitaph on, 283. 

Mary, 285. 

Meles, 47. 

Melpomene, 269. 

Memnon, 47. 

Milton, John, 85, 138, 284. 

Mincius, 91. 

Minstrel's Ron //delay. The, 292. 

Moore, Thomas, 146. 

Moschus, 44. 

Muses, 14, 87, 89, 269. 

music, 48. 

myrtles, 86. 

N. 

Naeara, 90. 
Narcissus, 142. 
nightingales, 45, 142. 
nuptial song, 36, 93. 



O. 



oaten flute, 66, 88. 
OSagrian maidens, 46. 
Oread Nymphs, 31. 
Orpheus, 46, 48. 



Pagan Epitaph, A, 282. 

Pales, 72. 

Pan, 71, 268. 

Panope, 91. 

Parnassus, 269. 

Paston, Mrs. Margaret, Epitaph on, 

283. 
pastor, 67. 

Pastorall Aeglogue, a, 59. 
Pembroke, Countess of, 65, 298. 



Pembroke, Countess of, Epitaph on 

the, 279. 
Peneus, 15. 
Persephone, 32, 48. 
Phosphor, 266, 276. 
plaine, 67. 
poison, 43, 147. 
Priapus, 16, 46. 
prime, 68. 
provoke, 108. 
Pythian, 145. 



rage, 109. 

rathe, 93. 

recks, 92. 

reign, 106. 

Robertson, F. VV., quoted, 152, 276. 



Rome, 139. 
Eose Ayl/ner, 282. 
ryved, 69. 



salvage, 68. 

Satyrs, 88. 

scrannel, 92. 

Sea Dirge, A, 280. 

Severn, John, 147. 

Severn River, 267. 

shadow of death, 268. 

Shakespeare, 272. 

shatter, 86. 

Shelley, P. B., 134. 

Shepherd's Elegy, The, 287. 

Sidney, Sir Philip, 50, 149. 

sightless, 143. 

Sleep and Death, 273. 

snake Memory, 144. 

Soldiers' Dirge, 281. 

Sorrow, 265, 272. 

sped, 92. 

Spenser, Edmund, 64. 

spill, 68. 

St. Peter, 92. 



304 



INDEX. 



Stella, 66, 70. 
stock, 67. 
stound, 69. 
stownd, 71. 
Strymonian, 45. 
swans, 45. 



T. 



Tennyson, Alfred, 151, 263. 
tenor, no. 

Thatiatopsis, 294, 300. 
Theocritus, 13, 47. 

Thomson, Catharine, On the Relig- 
ious Alemory of, 284. 
Thymbris, 17. 
Thyrsis, 14. 

Thyrsis, The Song of, 9. 
toyle, 69. 
Triton, 91. 
turtle, 47, 71. 



uncouth, 94. 



unexpressive, 93. 
upland, III. 
Urania, 136, 269. 



Vaughan, Henry, 298. 
Venus's girdle, 32, 

W. 

Webster, John, 281. 
weeds, 265. 
westering, 88. 
Wilde, Robert, 279, 
Wolfe, Charles, 286. 
Wolfe, General, 107. 
wight, 67. 
words, 265. 

Wordsworth, William, 283. 
wot, 67. 



Y. 



y'drad, 68. 
yew-tree, 265. 




003 800 



